Seedlings: Ties
by Virodeil
Summary: The second war in the Wizzarding World of Great Britain had ended. Several students that were most impacted were forgotten, though, and thus sought to leave the world forever in hope of a better life. Could they achieve that? On hiatus.
1. Story Notes

**Story Notes**

**SPOILER WARNING**: Major and minor spoilers for my other story, _Beyond the Borders, Beneath the Skies_. Do not proceed yet if you are anti-spoilers and wish to read the other story first. (But I warn you now, I do not know when I will edit and update that story…)

The background for the characters (Dila, Ana, Harry and Vorin) is taken almost thoroughly from my AU Harry Potter story in : "Beyond the Borders: Beneath the Skies." But the story is basically like this: An aristocratic English couple bearing the sirname Kensington (an old Wizarding family) blood-adopted a pair of eight-year-old girls (who became twins by the magical adoption, since their birthdays were the same and they had been born at the same time, and they wished to be twins) in 1984: Ardila (Dila) and Ariana (Ana). The family came across Harry while he was being hunted by his cousin and gang one day before his birthday in July 1990, when he was ten years old, and adopted him, seizing the right of guardianship from the Dursleys for child-neglect.

The story proceeds from that to 1994, in which the Last Battle broke. The seven years of Harry's learning were compounded into 3 (and a year of Horcrux-hunting). Events were otherwise quite similar to HP canon; but Harry's thirst of knowledge did make a difference. (Oh, Dila and Ana were out of school by then, homeschooled by their parents and tutors.) By Prologue's time, the twins and Harry were respectively eighteen and fourteen years old.

Vorin was found and adopted just some months before Harry went to Hogwarts; he had been an urchin before. He was the bastard son of Voldemort and Belatrix Lestrange. Due to the warped nature of Voldemort, he attained some anomaly. The progress of his age was nearly nonexistent; for all aspects, he was a three-year-old with the mind of a (bright) five-year-old, whereas he had lived for more than thirty years old. (He was conceived during Voldemort's first rise to power.)

And here is the short timeline-summary of those more-or-less four years:

1990: The Kensingtons adopted Harry and Vorin; the twins were adopted six years prior. Harry learnt of his parents, his heritages, powers and past. Sirius was released from Azkaban after a trial he had never been given with full apology, and he lived with the Kensingtons afterwards so that he would always be near his godson. Remus came to stay at the same time. Harry learnt about the Wizarding World, Wizarding families and customs, and began to study and train his powers. He befriended many children from Wizarding families then.

1991: Harry's first year in Hogwarts: learning second and third years. (He covered first-year materials pre-Hogwarts.) Quirrel succeeded to go into the chamber holding the Philosopher Stone in Halloween and was killed by the curses and enchantments there. Lockhart taught Defense Against the Dark Arts in the second half of the semester, but the poor marks of the students in the final DADA test saw him out of Hogwarts. Malfoy Manour was searched entirely by a crew of competent agents from the International Confederation of Wizards, and the Hocrux diary of Voldemort was brought to the Department of Mystery to be destroyed. (Word of it reached the Kensingtons and Dumbledore.)

1992: Harry's second year in Hogwarts: learning fourth and fifth years. Umbritch taught DADA because no one wanted the job. She tortured the students in various subtle ways just for the 'fun' of it. Harry learnt his materials mostly in secret, to keep her interest out, and outwardly joined the second-year students. Dumbledore secretly taught Harry about Voldemort's past and about the Horcruxes, since there were dark rumors about Voldemort's rising again.

1993: Harry's sixth and seventh years. Snape taught DADA on Dumbledore's instruction since no one wanted to teach the class still. Slughorn taught Potions. An infiltration attempt by Voldemort and his Death Eaters via an unknown passage in the Chamber of Secrets took his life, as he battled and killed the basilisk before it got out from the broken girls' bathroom in the second floor. Dumbledore and some other teachers died trying to evacuate the students to safety. Hogwarts was not taken, but the Dark had much influence in the teaching staff, via the Ministry of Magic. The second war begun.

1994: Harry, the twins, Ginny, Ron and Hermione embarked on a hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes in two separate teams which sometimes crossed paths, had additional members, and exchanged members. Vorin stayed with the Kensington couple, and the Kensington Manour became their base of operation. Meanwhile, they tried to encourage the Wizarding World to get out of the shock of Voldemort's sudden rise to power and gather themselves for a defense. During the year, they also trained themselves and other people in fighting, in preparation to end Voldemort's threat once and for all. The Last Battle broke out in May 1994.

The chapter will be mostly in present tense, first person point of view. The point of views are varied, but I cannot spare one for every character, for various reasons. I might manage to contrive something which you wished to see, though, if you requested it; but I am not really sure about that.

Comments will be very much appreciated. This is a revised story, so I hope it works better than the original one. If you wished to comment but could not do so through the site, you could contact me via my E-mail in my profile.

Thank you and happy reading!

Rey


	2. Prologue

**Prologue**

The devastation was not tangible or visible, in passing. The estate stood and spread undamaged, pristine even. But if one looked closer, one would notice how vacant it was from human life, neither owners nor workers. The mansion and its supporting buildings were empty.

The recent war had taken them. The workers died defending the estate and all the living – or not – treasures in it and their employers; all that marked their lives and mattered for them, supported them, in times of peace. The owners – the Lord and his family – found their foes in a faraway land, separated by a strait and stretches of earth. Only four came back, out of eight. But they were not whole… The all-out battle had taken everything from them; motivations for them to live on. They were not much surprised upon finding the estate, their home, abandoned; or rather, they were too numb to really care. And after all, many of their friends and servants had died alongside them during the seven days of death and ruins. For all they knew, they were living ghosts themselves, unwilling to live but reluctant to die.

Dila led her siblings into the sitting-room of the mansion, and they sat there long in silence, as if waiting for more to come. But hours passed and no one came in after them.

From the looks on their faces, they did not expect it to happen… But still they hoped.

"We can't be like this forever. It'd drive me crazy," Harry croaked, breaking the thick silence between them. His green eyes, formerly so bright and vivid, roamed the cozy room listlessly. Then, in a hollow whisper, he added, "We might just as well kill ourselves; anything. I can't stand doing nothing."

"You're doing Voldemort a favour, then," Dila said flatly. For once, her voice missed the inflections which was uniquely hers. She twisted one of her tattared braids in her hand, upset and bewildered. She did not like their inactivity too. But what could they do?

Her gaze strayed to Ana, her twin sister, and the everyoung Vorin in the other's lap, sleeping fitfully in sheer exhaustion and shock. The little boy had tagged along even to the site of the battle, although they managed to convince him to stay in the castle while the rest of them fought on the grounds of the school. But in the end, battle had come for him, for some Death Eaters managed to slip into the castle and to where Hogwarts' first-years were sheltered. Their parents took their final stands defending him and the eleven-year-olds. He never quite recovered from it.

They were broken, in one form or another. They just did not want to accept the reality. They all knew it. But they were afraid to move to the next step, whatever it was. Their lifestock had been either slaughtered for their provisions or sold in the course of one year. The fields had been planted with hardwood trees in anticipation of their never going to be used for farming again. The workers had been released from their duties – although their loyalty kept them at their lord's side. The orphanage the family ran was now an independent organisation – with many of the female workers and their children strengthening their ranks, and money from the sale of the lifestock funding it. The defenders had not expected to survive to live in a new era; they had held no hope for themselves. The four siblings had been counted among them, yet they lived.

It all sounded and looked like a fairytale, a grim but triumphant fairytale. But to the four siblings, it was all grim… and they wished it were a fairytale indeed.

"We can go somewhere," Ana proposed tentatively, herself unconvinced. The silence had stretched overlong, and dark thoughts had filled their minds again. It was a torture for her own, as now she did not have the strength necessary to hold back from feeling the surface thoughts and emotions her siblings felt.

"Where?" Harry and Dila asked in unison. But hope budded again in their hearts, like shy new growth expecting spring. It was a reprieve for Ana, a fleeting one.

Silence reigned again for a long moment. Neither knew the answer. But then Harry abruptly stood up and, shaking his head, said, "I'll go pack. Wherever is better than here." His eyes were even more haunted than before. His twin sisters nodded in agreement. They could no longer stand the quiet born out of the absence of life. If they were busy, they could keep out the darkness in their hearts… for a while, at least.

The halls were empty. Their hearts were empty, and their lives also, now that they realised it.

But they no longer hid behind pretences, and with that, they were somehow freed.

As if summoned, people trickled into the mansion before evening came. Most of them were the siblings' companions when they had been hunting Horcruxes and Death Eaters alike in the one dark year leading to the Final Battle on Hogwarts' grounds: Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Susan, Daphne and Padma. But Padma dragged Draco Malfoy with her, who had not fought with the Dark side but stayed ambiguous throughout the two long years of Voldemort's second rising, and Daphne brought her best friend Patricia Davis.

"Where do you want us to go?" Ron, ever the most eager among them, said when they were all gathered in the sitting-room. The twins stared pointedly at Harry, who did not deny the silent accusation , although he looked slightly abashed.

Harry had flown the Wanderers' banner without his siblings' knowledge.

Ana and Dila both threw displeased glances at him, but it was Dila who dragged him aside and demanded why he had done so. "They have families," she said at last.

Harry, exasperated, retorted, "They chose to go. You know that the summons isn't compulsory. You arranged it yourself – the whole banner and our communication system. That just means they're eager to leave, like us."

Dila looked away, but then returned her gaze to her younger brother. "I know where you wanted to go when you suggested it."

Harry returned her stare defiantly. "Where?" he challenged. But there was an odd note in his voice, almost a longing.

Dila did not answer, but her eyes spoke volumes. After a moment, Harry looked away and strode with an air of weak persistence towards his pack; that which had tasted the soil of a young world and felt its winds. Arda, where angels ruled as servants and children of the Creator, and there were two light-bearing trees as awesome and unearthly as the angels themselves, planted on the middle of a heaven-like land…

The banner stood proudly on the middle of the room now, brought out from where Harry had hidden it by Ana and now clutched loosely in her hand. In peacetime, its usage had been a sign that they would venture out somewhere to explore. During the last two tenuous years of war, it had been a rallying point for their neutral forces against Voldemort's. Coloured lines and curves on the white background signified various natural features one usually explored – air, mountains, cliffs, caves, rivers, forests, plains, deserts, and sea. All looked to be glowing with inner light, given their phosphorescent paints, and more than two pairs of eyes were staring at it with a look akin to hunger.

The flagpole was given to Ron, then, And ana sidled up to her twin sister, who stood on a corner with the expression of a trapped animal. `We don't have to go through with this,` she said through their mental bond.

`No,` Dila murmured shortly. Her eyes flickered to the packs the newcomers brought, and those they had prepared themselves, stacked neatly nearby the flagpole. It was already too late to back away.

The image of a giant, monstrous but somehow humanoid man floated through their bond, accompanied by choking fear. The eyes – two pools of molten lava, twisted and contemptuous – roamed around, and settled in her direction with an eruption of manic glee. `Mine,` he said, and an invisible vise-like grip seized her soul.

`No!` Dila screamed through the link.

Ana winced. `Sister!` she shouted back, trying to get through the cloud of fear tangling her twin in the wake of the vision. `It's a long time ago, sis – Come off it!` She rushed to the corner where Dila had sequestered herself and caught the latter in an embrace. `You are here, Dila. We are here. Don't let him win. We can face him, together, like before.`

They hugged each other tightly, while the rest of their group were busy discussing where they should go and what they should do. The image still danced before their mind eyes, a menacing shadow accompanied by a name. Melkor.

All of them, barring Tracy and Draco, had been pulled into Arda once, during one of their explorations in the Alpines. Dila had been summoned there by Melkor, who had been too impatient in his wanting to see the Elves and Men for himself, and find a way to destroy or suborn them before they flourished. It was their tie to her that pulled them with her there. But thankfully, they had not landed in Melkor's lare – although the had neither known nor appreciated it at that time. It had been the likeness between Dila's soul and his that had brought her to him, and he had always sought to possess it ever since he knew about it.

Would he do that now? Where would they end up this time? What could – and would – they do to prevent him from knowing that they were once more within his grasping range.

Questions buzzed between the sisters, grim and foreboding. But they had no answer to them, not before they took the plunge which might not see them out of the proverbial water again.

Dila stepped away from the embrace. Her senseless fright slowly dicipated, and her body stopped shaking. `Let's go,` she whispered to her sister, and there was a quiet determination in her voice, deceptively frail. She held up her chin and strode towards the flagpole, with Ana, smiling worriedly, trailing after her.


	3. Chapter 1: Ginny

**Chapter 1**

**Ginevra (Ginny) Weasley**

"Ow!"

"Hell!"

"Auch! Don't sit on my legs!"

"Umph. I ding I brog by nose…"

"Where are we?"

"It doesn't look like Arda."

"Hey! Where are the boys?"

Everything happened so quickly. One moment we were standing on the big circular pad that was the Department of Mysteries' latest experiment, the one that would bring us to a totally new world we would like to go, and another moment finds us laid on a heap, our limbs tangled, on the middle of a dirt road. We were linking arms one to another, our grips firm, yet we could not hold the tight circle for long when the pad was activated. It was as if a tornado were raging among us, wrenching our arms from each other, making each person a solitary presence to themselves… Well, it was not completely figurative.

To our dismay, now there are only seven people present instead of thirteen. Harry, Ron, Susan, Neville, Padma and Malfoy are missing from our midst, leaving only Vorin as the only male in the haphazard company. And he is currently buried alive under the bodies and limbs of his companions, including myself.

"We ought to search them," Hermione shrieks, panicking. I, having just managed to disentangle myself from her, cover my ears temporarily in pain and annoyance.

"You should've traced if your family's once magical and had an affair with a banshee," I splutter. But then my attention is drawn to Dila, who lies rigid on the ground outside our tangled circle, her wide eyes staring unseeingly at the clear sky overhead. "Dila!" My heart hammers wildly. What is happening?

But, as soon as I notice her, she rises into a sitting position and blinks. She returns to the Dila I know. However, still, she looks rather strained. Ana is beside her, supporting her, and now they look more alike than ever. I just wish it were not pain that they share…

Dila rises to her feet after a moment, deflecting our inquiries with a shrug and a waving hand. She skirts the rearranging group, stalking and peering around for signs of danger; her sword – the heirloom of her family – drawn and held tight in her right hand, while her left one ready to shoot magic.

"We are completely alone," Ana says wearily. "Don't you know that? Stop fretting, Dila. We need to get going." After an uncertain pause, she resumes, "I have a feeling that the boys will be all right."Then, before anyone could interject, "I don't know when we're going to be reunited with them, but I guess that's enough for now. We need to think about ourselves first."

"Hey! I'b a boy too!" Vorin protests weakly through his bleeding nose. He looks pale and shaken. I repair his nose and banish the blood, then gather him into my arms, smiling in hope of soothing him. He buries his face into my dirt-smudged chest and whimpers quietly, "I want Harry…"

The name echoes in my head and seizes my heart in a painful grip. Harry. Harry is missing. And my brother too; my only family left after the war. Now I am more alone than ever. And where is everyone else? I do not care about Malfoy, but Neville and Padma and Susan…

"We should get going," I murmur to the quietening group. But it is like I am hearing the words coming from another's lips. I feel numb all over.

"If Ana says so, then they'll be alright, Gin," Hermione murmurs while pealing Vorin off of me and helping me stand up. "We ought to try to find Ron and the others in the first place. But brooding wouldn't do the search any good." Her voice wobbles dangerously, but it never breaks. Tears gather in her eyes, but they never fall.

Our eyes meet, our gazes hard, yet then we relax; a message has been conveyed between us, of a relentless pursuit and enduring love. When we join in with the rest of the group, the other four girls take turns hugging us. Dila's sword has returned to its scabbard on her left hip, and now that she sees us in need, her usual demeanour returns. She is our leader again… and our mother figure, too.

Tracy now performs a spell, with her wand balanced on her flat upturned palm. "Point me. Ronald Weasley."

Her wand swivels around then settles, pointing to the southwest. At the same time, we can feel some shifting in the air around us. Well, then, this looks like the Arda we know, with its abundance of ambient magic, although now there are the sun and all here, unlike before. But poor Tracy was not in our group when we were pulled here for the first time, and now she nearly freaks out. Hermione soothes her while I take the task from her.

"Point me. Harlend Kensington."

My wand shows a direction north of us.

"Point me. Susan Bones."

Northeast.

I continue for some time, with Dila watching the names and directions pensively.

"We should measure the distance between them, and decide where to go first," she proposes after I speak the last name – Draco Malfoy – with great hesitance. (The wand points to the east.)

"How do we know where to go?" Tracy asks uncertainly. "Can we make maps?"

"Sirius could," Dila murmurs, sadness in her voice. "Well, the knowledge stays with Harry, so we can't possibly know."

"But Sirius' scribbles are with us," Hermione points out with a bit of excitement. "So let's get to the side and discuss it, shall we?" Meaningfully, she taps Ana's shoulder, then the pack on her back. We all have each two tents on our packs, magical and mandane, except for the couples which each share a tent with each other; but Ana's magical tent is the most comfortable among ours, although less spacious than others'. And now the notion tickles our minds, tantelising us with hopes of resting and recovering.

We have not slept properly since more than two months ago, and no one could lie still for more than two hours during our preparation to leave our known world. The unexpected mode of transportation (which Hermione found two weeks ago) and the surprising trip, short though it has been, tires us to the bones. And there is also the shock and worry that half of our members are not with us… We refuse to think that they are somehow in danger. That would make our ignorance of their fates so much unbearable – in a totally negative way.

Thankfully, Ana agrees. We move away from the spot we landed on and look around for a place good for camping. The woods are light, and there are many clearings. Finally, though, we find one that suits us – more sheltered than others – and Ana fishes out her magical tent from her pack.

There is only one big room in the magical tent, but it is partitioned by draperies and folding doors to form the kitchen, bathroom, sitting-room, bedroom, and vestibule doubling as mudroom. There are only few furniture around, but all of them are useful; and the bed and chairs and rugs are all cozy. The tent is dominated by browns and greens and greys, natural and soothing. It is not like Dila's open and colourful and cluttered tent, mine and Harry's 'fiery one, Ron's and Hermione's which is full of books and board-games and carving tools, Daphne's which is all blue and cool and proper, Padma's which is full of decoration, or Susan's and Neville's which is like a forest with its real trees and animals.

all of us are seated in the sitting-room; lounging in the sets of sofa, swaying gently in the lone rocking chair available, or lying on our bellies on the plush cream-coloured rugs and tan cushions. Dila makes us each a mug of hot chocolate, and we sip from the steaming mugs while riffling through the notes Sirius gave his godson, which then were passed to Hermione by Harry for safekeeping and to sate her curiosity.

Each person is assigned a stack of parchments to look up in our haste to finish the task quicker. But few stay awake long enough to finish their assignments, unfortunately… I am included in the 'survivors', but not for long. One by one we tumble into slumber right on the spot, forsaking our research and forgetting it when we are awake.

Exclamations of desperation and rants of self-rage – coupled with a few well-chosen infamous oaths from myself, which I learnt from Ron and my twin brothers – welcome Hermione's declaration from her rocking chair that we were asleep for nearly a day full. The only ones who say nothing are the twin sisters. Dila is curled on the edge of the rug around a cushion, her eyes wide in terror she alone experiences, just like when we first arrived here. Ana curls up in a fetal position beside her, her eyes screwed shut and her expression pinched. Their hands are linking in a death grip, as if one is falling over a cliff and the other is trying to anchor her to safe ground. Once again, my heart beats rapidly in my chest. What has been happening between the two of them? They are even odder than they were in our own world! And this torment they share looks so terrifying…

And just as before, the horror is only a short spell. Dila recovers quickly, and so does Ana. I look around, and find that the others are looking at the twins as well. But only one dares to raise the question I know is in all our minds: Hermione. "What's wrong? You were like that too when we'd just arrived." And I thought I was alone in my observation of that particular anomaly…

"I…" Dila begins quietly, her voice shaking. The room instantly plunges into dead silence.

"I…" she struggles to continue. "I dreamt of nothing, if that is what you really wanted to know; but I was gripped by a strange darkness. It's blacker than night, as black as ink or perhaps blacker, and it's stifling me. The smell was foul… It was so cold… It's fear incarnated. I felt desperate… Just like when dementors come near…" She looks to be in a sort of trance. Both her words and the way she proclaims them unnerve us, yet no one says anything to placate her or to fire another inquiry.

Most of us know who she dreamt of… or rather, who 'visited' her when her guard was down. Melkor. We are really in Arda, then, for his influence could never reach any of us when we were in our own world. We had ever been tempted, threatened, and lied by him, secretly, one by one and mind to mind, but I never saw that he would pay most attention to someone particular among us and hurl his might on her. It never happened before, even when we were here – or perhaps another part of this world – the first time.

"You need chocolate," Hermione says at length, her voice unsteady. She murmurs a string of spells and points her wand towards the mugs of cold chocolate beside each of us. They warm up and let out tendrils of steam again. But Dila gets a treat: a bar of chocolate Hermione Achio-es from her pack.

While she is nibbling on the chocolate and the rest of us are sipping from our mugs of reheated cocoa, Hermione tries to summon the right parchment from the stacks scattered throughout the room. But she gets no result. The looks of desperation double on our faces.

"I have a solution," Dila says after getting their attention with a series of whistled notes. She looks better; perhaps her nightmarish vision has been balmed a bit by the chocolate. "But for it we must be properly rested and fed." She raises a hand and waves it when the rest of us are about to throw heated comments her way. "Didn't you see for yourself what's just happened with us?"

The soon-to-be racket dies down. We cannot deny it. Most of us still have the looks of recently-awakened people anyway.

"What do you propose, then?" Tracy asks. Even after a month of living side by side during our preparation to come here, she is still reserved and hesitant – more reserved than even Daphne her best friend.

"I'm going to try to make the map with raw magic," Dila mutters, her gaze cast onto the empty chocolate wrappers in her left hand.

The soothed volcano erupts.

"Stupid!!"

"Do you wish to KILL yourself, Ardila?!"

"Who's to lead us if you die?"

"It needs a lot of magic and concentration!"

"Are you sure you can do that?"

"Raw magic? Wouldn't the parchment burn from such power? And you're a powerful mage, for haven's sake! You'd just turn that poor parchment into ashes in a second, if not all of us too!"

At length, Dila herself erupts.

"SILENCE!"

And silence she gets.

But she says nothing for some time. She looks spent, as if roaring atop the noises had taken all of her energy. But it cannot be… can it? She could roar even louder and her voice would still be clear, and she would not even cough from wielding her voice so. I have ever seen her like that. But I never saw her this tired, not since we escaped from Utumno in our first sojourn in Arda. (Then, all of us in the escapade were terribly exhausted and afraid, not only she.)

When she next speaks, it is in a quiet tone, the extreme opposite of her earlier outburst. But I would rather she screamed. Her tone is odd, weary but mocking and cold, quite unlike herself.

"It is either this, or no map at all. And in this way we might be able to pinpoint their exact locations as well."

No one raises any complaint after that.


	4. Chapter 2: Ginny

Chapter 2

Ginevra (Ginny) Weasley

The sitting-room is eerily quiet.

It is three days after we arrived here, and we have not gone out of the tent for anything. But with this new problem we face, it is even more impossible to go out.

I shift heavily into a more comfortable position, while still sitting on the cushion on the rug in the for-once-cluttered sitting-room. The feeling permiating my whole body is strange and uncomfortable, as if I were a bug dragged down by the weight of a clump of honey. But at least Dila no longer requires my strength in the making of the map. It felt like my insides were sucked out and drained all at once.

"We shouldn't have let her do it," Hermione mutters darkly. Dila is slumped over the stretch of huge parchment we have prepared for the map. The blinding white light, the residue of the creation, has just faded from her hands and the parchment. Ana and Vorin shares her fate. Apparently she has taken most of their energy, more than she has the rest of us.

"It's too late," I slur. Apparently I misjudge my strength or the portion Dila has taken from me, because my eyelids feel quite heavy all of a sudden. I drag Vorin to the side, fetching some cushions along the way, and arrange a makeshift bedding for us on the edge of the rug. The second my head touches the pile of cushions and my arms wind around the little boy, I drop smoothly into unconsciousness.

When next I wake up, what greets me is the silence of a sleeping company, not the eerie one of a bunch of shocked people trying to deny what has resulted from their experiment. I disentangle myself from Vorin and sit up, looking around. The light from the lone plastic window across the room is very dim; a faint moon is waning. On the middle of the sitting-room, the stretch of map emanates a colourful phosphorescent glow.

The sticky, weighty exhaustion from earlier has dicipated. My body still throbs slightly with remembered ache, but it is no longer so bothersome. I look around for my wand, but it is even hard to see my legs in front of me properly. So, giving up, I close my eyes and stretch out my right hand – my wand hand. Then I summon it to me, by concentrating on having the familiar presence gripped in my hand. Ana has taught me this trick a long time ago, and it has always proven very useful.

It does not disappoint me now, either. When I open my eyes again, the sight of the familiar length of ashwood greets me, clutched in my fist. I contemplate it for a moment, rejoicing for its presence and drinking of the awareness that it is truly my match. I could not feel this in my own world; no one could, except perhaps the Kensingtons, who had been quite a powerful family in nearly all terms there. But Arda has the needed abundance of magic that our world lacked, and it boosts everything magical that we know, own, or see. I am just thankful that now I am in control of all my faculties. The first time we were here, I suffered from weak legs and low vision for the duration of our sojourn. It was horrible, but then again I was not the only one. We were all tested in one way or the other at that time.

I can no longer deny that this changed place is Arda; older than last we came and subsequently stranger, yet still the Arda we have known so far. I wonder if those angelic beings we befriended are still here, and if they still recognise us. It would be fun…

A flick. A murmured spell. The cluster of oil lamps hung on strategic places on the ceiling light up.

Ah. I have not forgotten the ways of magic here, then. For a moment there, I was afraid that the lamps would burst instead from an overpowered spell.

I look around again, and now notice my friends lying haphazardly around the sitting-room. Dila and Ana are missing, though; perhaps laid down in Ana's bed in her bedroom by a thoughtful someone. Hermione lies on her belly with her arms pillowing her head by the open map, while Daphne occupies the opposite side in her typical quiet sleep. Tracy is curled up in the rocking chair, her countenance troubled, but she does not otherwise stir.

My attention is drawn inexorably back to the map lying so innocently between the two girls. The glowing colours on it, moving slowly all the time, gleam brighter under the wavering yellowish light of the lamp and beckon me to examine them closer. I obey. I scoot closer and look down on it, my eyes hungrily roaming the expanse of dots and lines and plains.

As we have wished, the map looks much like the Marauders' Map, although less detailed – and perhaps less accurate. As planned, each of the dots representing ourselves are marked by different colours; obvious dangers by vivid red, possible threats by loominous grey, and common people by black. But I do not know what other traits the map holds, and Dila probably does not know the full extent of its capability, even. It was a blind project, and what drove us was sheer boldness; Gryffindor recklessness, some would say.

So now it is time to test it, before we proceed any further with other things.

I wake up my friends one by one, gently so as not to startle them into fighting mode. But I transfer Vorin – whom I do not wake up – to the bedroom, to join his sisters. (Hmm. I was right. Dila and Ana are there, tucked into the covers and sleeping peacefully, undisturbed, for once.)

The four of us gather before the map, and I blurt eagerly, "Where's Harry? Where's Ron?" Hermione and Tracy snicker, while Daphne only snorts primly and tosses her head – her way of showing amusement.

"Orange and emerald," Hermione suggests helpfully. "Now we should turn the map so that its north is the same as the real north here, th—"

The map has moved on its own accord, to our shock and dismay.

"You… put your hand on it, Hermione. It answered your wish. Perhaps we don't have to use our wands for this after all," Daphne says, a little shakily, after a full minute of dead silence. But despite her statement, she clutches her wand tighter in her hand, as if preparing for a foe to spring up suddenly from inside the placid map.

No one responds. But Hermione seems to accept her theory without reservations, because then she puts her trembling hand on the map and whispers, "Ron Weasley. Show us Ronald Weasley."

Her index finger is dragged to the upper right side of the map. The rest of us are knocked aside in her haste to follow her finger before her arm could be dislocated from the pull. Her horrified expression would look comical if not for the circumstances.

A bright orange dot flares brighter and bigger right above Hermione's fingernail. It reads "Ronald Weasley" in black lettering, and the place's name is the Grey Havens… whatever it is.

"It's closer to us," I state, needlessly. Realising it as soon as I utter the words, I blush and point at a cluster of colours huddled in a spot nearby a place named Buckland. "We only have the Tower Hills between us and Ron's place." Squinting, I can make out another, smaller script under the bolded name. "Emyn Berain. Perhaps some people recognise the same place by many names."

"Look at here, across the huge sea. It says Elvenhome and Valinor, beside some other names. I think this map is styled in two languages, at least," Tracy points out; but her smile is more unnerved than excited.

"Elves?" Hermione squeaks. "House elves? Is this world populated by house elves?"

While giving Tracy what I hope a reassuring grin, I tell our bushy-haired friend, "Don't you remember how they mistook us for Elves, Mia? They said 'Firstborn'. And they called us 'Secondborn', when they finally realised who we were."

Her face lights up, and she giggles with ironic amusement. "Well," she says lightly, "we are back being Secondborn again now."

We laugh. Those angelic beings who made and governed this world – this young universe – were just as perplexed with as as otherwise. But not all of them were friendly—

I shake my head and rein in my mirth. "Anyway…" I scoot to another side of the map, farthest from Hermione, then put my hand, palm down, firmly on the piece of parchment. "Harlend Potter-Kensington," I call in a clear voice, as if I could bring Harry to me by mere strength of voice.

Well, it does not happen. My hand is instead pulled to another direction by the map, and I end up kissing Hermione's nose when I fall prostrated on the map. "Oomph. Sorry, Mia. Sorry, everyone," I groan, and gingerly lift myself away from the precious parchment.

But the map is not even wrinkled.

"Well, I've proven another trait of this map, I think," I say weakly, as my eyes are seeking for the spot my hand has just moved away from.

"Harry's in Rivendell," Hermione mumbles, her gaze fixed on a point on the map; most likely the spot I have been searching for. Ah, our Watcher…

"It says Imladris too. It's too far, anyhow," I say dejectedly, once my eyes drink the details surrounding the green dot which is Harry's. "Let's try another one. What's Neville's colour?"

"Light brown," Tracy pipes up, unexpectedly.

But no one wants to check on the map for his whereabouts. Or rather, no one is willing to be pulled or shoved aside involuntarily during the search.

In the end, we decide to pay attention only to the spots we have found so far.

But Hermione seems to be having another idea in mind. with a thoughtful look, she taps the dot labeled "Tower Hills", resulting in the spot's enlargement into three circles, one nearer to the sea than the others. And when she taps the circle closer to the sea, it transforms into a small picture of a tall stone tower.

"Cool!" I whisper excitedly. "See what's in it, Mia."

Another tap. The highest level of the tower reveals something that is burning with a pure white colour, as blinding as Dila's magic was. We gasp. "What's that?" collective voices whisper, half in awe and half in fear.

"A powerful object, perhaps?" Tracy muses, her voice strained. "A crystal ball? Looks like it from here."

I want to retort that there are no crystal balls in Arda, but then remember that she has never been here before. Besides, she has been so strained by all the events we have been through thus far. She comes from a pureblood family, like I do, but this level and show of magic are quite different from what we were used to in the Wizarding World. Well, and I can see that she is a Ravenclaw-Slytherin, unlike the rest of us here – who have at least a bit of Gryffindor in our personalities.

"Let's see if there are others," I say, trying not to draw attention to how uncomfortable she is among us.

She gives me a faint, surreptitious smile. I smile back in the same way.

"We have to see the map in full, then," Hermione is saying. We return our attention to the map, and what Hermione is doing with it.

Just in time to see it change, obeying her oral command without her touching the parchment. The lines squiggle and merge. The dots shrink and change; some vanish, but there are even more dots replacing those—

"Hey. Here, here. There are two here… but they're in an inland sea, on the seabed, I think. Weird. Perhaps they're really small? Then it makes sense that they're carried to the sea and the carrier's drowned with them," Hermione chatters excitedly, pointing to a spot north of the map. "They're just as bright as the one in that tower, though." Then, "We need to take notes!" She looks around frantically. Now I notice that she does not have her wand with her…

Smirking, I Achio my pack to me, and plunge a hand into it, thinking meanwhile of parchments and quills and ink bottles.

The things inside it shift, and my hand happen upon just the things I need. Perfect.

With a flourish, I draw them out one by one and set them before Hermione. With a teasing grin, I say, "Next time don't forget your wand, buddy."

She glares. I chuckle. Tracy hides a grin behind her hands. Mission accomplished…

We return our attention to the map, again, and each examine a patch of it for the wight lights.

But how if the "white lights" are sickly white or even grayish?

Tracy finds the former, and Daphne finds the latter. Hermione and I find two more bright lights, and that makes it seven in total. But what are they?

There is only one way to find out. We have to visit the nearest site hosting one of the lights ourselves.

But Tracy—

I look up, and do a double take. Tracy is not in the room anymore. I did not hear her going… Whoa. It is either I have been more engrossed in the map and the discussion about it than I have thought, or she is more swift and stealthy than I have credited her for. – Probably both.

Before anyone else notices her absence, though, she is back, the sleepy Vorin in her arms, and the twins trailing behind her. Dila and Ana look fresh and curious, and judging from the look in their eyes, they are talking with each other mentally. (I have known them long enough to catch that. Besides, I had a pair of magical twins as big brothers, and they looked that way too sometimes.)

On the sight of them, though, the invisible dam holding us back – without our knowledge – breaks, and we barrage them with questions and information.

"Harry's in Rivendell."

"Ron's in Grey Havens."

"We found some weird wight lights on the map."

"How are you? Are you recovered enough?"

"It was a foolish thing to attempt, Ardila."

"Can we have breakfast now?"

Vorin utters a sharp whining protest. The three of us fall silent with chagrined expression on our faces. "Sorry."

Dila chuckles – unrepentantly. Ana smirks.


	5. Chapter 4: The White Light

With faces ranging from neutral to smirking to scowling, the thirteen travellers crowded the tent in which the weird little man was happily snoring. Dila sat farthest from him, by the tent's flap, and yet her gaze was fixed at him unwaveringly. They had spotted him about two days earlier, lurking in some bushes that lined the dirt road, and had promptly decided to take him with them. They felt guilty for kidnapping a seemingly-innocent creature – for the soles of his feet were too big and hairy to be a human feet's – but nearly all of them yet believed in the unlucky number of thirteen. They had decided to ride the horses they had brought in Susan's animal trunk, and they had continued riding until the day after, the experienced riders watching the new tiny enigma riding before Dusan and instructing the rest of the company on how to ride properly. Then, to many of the travellers' chagrin, the torture did not end there; they, somehow, were coaxed by Dila and Vorin into riding what Muggles would call "bicycles." There were only five people capable of riding those 'metal skeletons' – as some would call the contraption by – and the rest, like before, had to learn from scrap. Needless to say, the first leg of the journey did not leave a pleasant impression in the hearts of many.

Then, after all the accusing looks she had been very tired of, Dila suggested for them to just run to their destination, given the lush grass overgrowing the path. All of them had seemed to revel the experience of riding the bicycles well into the night just hours before, embraced by the wild natural landscape and atmosphere, and now Dila hoped that their innocent sides would be more 'ensnared' by the idea. She was not mistaken, but the brilliance of dribbing a ball all along the way was not to her credit – it had been Ginny's idea.

Now the tall, imposing towers loomed half a mile away from them, but strangely, they were not so inclined to check up for the possible treasure hidden in the tallest tower anymore. They had found nothing and nobody in sight. Did it mean the towers had been abandoned, masterless? Were there any traps, waiting them to be all inside their target of destination before devouring them all, like those fatal ones in Egyptian pyramids? They had no clue whatsoever about the beings living in this new, strange land, after all, so they were not able to gage the possible threats from the native people. It had only been sheer boldness – as befitting Gryffindores – that had made the scouts come close to the Tower Hills in a group of five, yet it seemed that their bravery had run out there, armed with such a small number.

"We have to explore it together," Padma said reasonably after a long deafening silence – in which some of them pondered about the lack of the night sounds.

"With that thing?" Draco flicked a glance at the sleeping being in one of the lower bunks. Glares were sent his way immediately.

"He can sing well. Is that a creature's thing to do?" Hermione scowled. "But yes, we may leave him here while we are going—"

"I'm staying too," Draco, blurting, cut her proposition off. Shocked hush reigned in the tent.

Then,

"Why do you want to stay? Don't you want to see what the thing is?"

"Guard that person over there, then."

"Told you, it's not a human at all!"

"But he quite resembles one, Malfy; end of discussion on that subject."

"How if we are trapped and die in that tower?"

"Patronus, dear Padma… We can send Malfy here a patronus telling that we're trapped and soon to be dead."

"A happy thought indeed…"

Knock!

"Hey! It hurts!"

"Draco should be fine here unless he harassed that little man."

"Or he harassed me."

"We can put many wards around this tent, protecting them from the inside and outside."

"We'd better get on that now."

"But I'm tired…"

"We have to, if—"

"Shut up, Mia."

"I. Am. Her. Mye. O. Ne!"

"Anything."

Yes, the silence was now ribbed violently to shreds.

Dila, grumbling and scowling, slipped out of the tent, warding the two tents together with Ana, Dusan and Alana without any noise – except the soft rustle of grass beneath their boots. The scowl softened a bit – into a frown – when she herded the elven twins back into the first tent, the smaller of the two. "Boys stay here. Girls stay in the other tent. Come."

None dared to counter the command. Dila was in a foul mood, and it would not do to make it fouler.

But Ana still had a say in the matter they had been discussing – or rather, arguing.

"I just had an inklink that we won't be the same anymore after going to the tower. Can we risk it?"

"You should have told us before," Draco growled.

"For the better or worse?" Dila asked, her tone guarded. Ana was silent, only casting a warning glance once at her.

Hermione murmured something which sounded like a protest but never raised her voice to speak it up. The rest were the same, only mumbling to themselves, and so, her cautious anticipation once more slipping into impatience, Dila shooed the group apart to the assigned tents.

The raven-haired girl woke the two tents up before dawn the next day, leaving the strange man to his dreams meanwhile. People grumbled and cursed while milling about trying to freshen themselves and their appearance up, yawning and stretching every so often. When they were about to depart, though, Draco appeared with his backpack, cloaked for travelling, saying he had decided to follow. "I won't be left behind with that creature," was his only reason.

None argued. No one was willing to strain the tense anticipation all the more with useless squabbles. If Draco wished to follow them – at last –, it was his choice, and as long as he kept silent and his hood up, nobody would be concerned. He was not one for a battle, much less a melee, anyway; but that was not a problem since there were many warriors already, those who did not rely simply on wands – unlike so many people in the Wizzarding World. He was not well-liked, even among his Slytherin friends – or were they only his acquaintances? – but the rest of the youthful party never missed acknowledging his presence or needs – although it was a different matter for his wants.

They were once again clad for travel and battle despite the short distance between their temporary lodging and the hills of their destination. In this strange land with even stranger people, they would not risk anything. They also carried each a bottomless pack with them, so anyone they met there – although the scouts said there had been no one – would not put much suspicion upon seeing them.

The moon and the stars had vanished from the sky. The wide sheet itself was not so dark anymore, promising the birth of a new day in a short while. The booted feet trod silently, half-heartedly, upon the dewy grass, stirring no noise discernable to human ears. Dila, Ana – with Renna, her guide dog – and the scouts walked ahead, and right behind them were Vorin, Dusan, Alana and Draco. The rest became the rear guards of the group, effectively sandwiching the latter category within a virtual defensive wall – which offended Vorin and the elven twins greatly. The hills on top of which the towers stood came nearer and nearer, the three edifices thrusting up to the sky majestically as if the centinels forever watching over the sea, or the remaining pillars of a giant's palace. In the oncoming light of a new day, the white stone of the towers gleamed dimly, as if the last of the moonlight had decided to linger on the slim structures.

They trod up the sloping and winding path relentlessly, seldom resting. The morning air, fresh with the intermingled aromas of wet grass and salty vapour, helped them greatly, as such untainted air was a luxury they had never been able to enjoy in abundance in their homeworld.

No. Not their homeworld, but their previous world. They had left it and did not wish to come back, unlike one to a home. And why should they come back? Their families had been torn apart, and their dear friends or relatives had perished. Clinging to the remnence of what they had beforehand taken for granted was no cure for the mental wounds they had suffered in their early lives.

The dark thoughts swirled slowly in their minds alongside their moderate pace, making them wince internally when the invisible fingers touched some painful spots within their hooded heads.

The grassy hills were perfect for running freely like a little girl, thought Dila idly. She loved it. Harry loved it. Her father and other brother loved it… No! No! Her family and friends had been slaughtered slowly one by one, leaving only what she had now, plus the missing members…

Missing. Kidnapped?

She shuddered. Hollow pale blue orbs looked up at her, somehow tranquil and submissive to his fate. Her brother had been kidnapped, and she could not reach him in time to rescue him. She must not fail Harry this time… She must not neglect Ron and Neville also, two other people who had successfully nestled a good place in her heart – something which was a feat on itself, contrary to popular belief.

Her pace quickened, and soon she was jogging up the hill where the tallest and farthest tower perched grandly.

Someone took her left hand. It was Ana, glancing at her with a knowing gaze. That foster twin of hers always guessed what was in her mind with unnerving precision. Now, though, was not the time to discuss the thoughts with her.

Without her notice, her comrades brooded about similar thoughts, undisturbed, for once.

Hermione was thinking about propping up on her belly for a good read. It was such a good place for such activity. Yes, and it would be even better if her parents were with her, ready to share the information she got from whatever she was reading, listening to her comments and arguments, or offering themselves to hold a discussion about the subject. If only…

Draco was smirking grimly under the shadow of his hood. His parents would be mortified if they knew that now he was strolling up to an unknown tower in an unknown land with strange creatures who the Kensingtons called elves, and with mudbloods and blood traitors too. They had never allowed him to even imagine adventures, saying that foolish quests were only to be told in fairytales or for the rash, stupid Gryffindores, yet here he was, in one from – he believed – so many to come. It did not feel as badly as described to him, though, and for once he thanked anyone and everyone for the chance; only once, no more, he vowed.

The elven twins, hot with bridled energy, bounced lightly in their every steps, loving the mild embrace of nature around them. Beside them, Vorin tugged a small smile on his lips as he noted their bubbling vigour.

Tracy and Daphne ambled in placid silence on the very end of the procession, each absorbing every detail in the nature with minds blank, willing it to wash away their weariness and pains, wishing that it could also get rid of the bad memories for them…

"It isn't locked," Ginny spoke in a hushed tone then, breaking the silence which had reigned for who knew how long. They were huddling on the doorstep of the tower's gate now, and the sun had fully risen from the eastern horizon, bathing their hooded cloaks with radiant rays of yellowish white light.

"A trap, perhaps?" Susan offered cautiously, speaking out what had been haunting their minds since the first time they had beheld the three towers.

"We shall see," Dila murmured. She turned to Ana, but the other girl had already advanced on the double doors. One arm that was not resting on the colar of her dog was stretched out, palm facing the wooden and metal planks. Seeming to be sure that there were no magical wards attached to the doors, she climbed up the steps and put the free hand gingerly on the lock hole. A series of clicking sounds was heard not a moment after, followed by the sharp intakes of breath from the tense company.

They froze around the doorsteps, poise for any possible ambush or hidden enemies, yet there was none.

"Dramatic," Draco drawled in a low voice after a while. He strutted up the steps and shoved Ana – none too gently – aside. If not for the girl's reflexes, he would have received a ficious bite from one offended rottweiler.

Said boy himself halted just after he had flung the heavy doors inward as far as he could. A spiral staircase led up from that level on the left side, winding around a single round pilar, but on the other side there was a gaping round hole which could mean either a well or a trapdoor to the underground level.

"Where do you reckon we should go, Draco?" Dila murmured from his right, startling him. The Slytherin boy cursed in heated hisses, sounding like an enraged or pained serpent.

"What's it, Dil?" Ginny asked from behind the girl.

"Come in," the addressed one beckoned in a ponderous tone, stepping into the room and aside to allow her friends to pour into the narrow space. "Don't forget to leave the door slightly ajar. We don't want to be trapped here accidentally, do we?"

"You say it as if you're strolling in a garden, Kensington," Draco gritted out.

Dila smiled thinly. "I've left my gardens at home, Draco. Now, friends, where should we go, up or down?" She indicated with her eyes the two adjacent spots. Dusan had summoned a ball of light, yellowish white – like the sun – in colour, to hover above the party, and now they could see that the hollow on the right side of the circular room was in fact a trapdoor with a staircase snaking down to the darkness below the ground level.

"Up. I want to know about the white light," Luna said in an oddly firm voice, her eyes uncharacteristically bright. The two girls exchanged uncertain looks, as Dila also wished to see what object could rival the colour of a raw burst of magic.

"Down. Perhaps we'll find hidden treasures?" It was Ginny. Dila – and some others, she bet – suppressed a laughter. It was Ron in a feminine voice to them.

At last Ginny won – marginally. Dusan descended first, bringing the light with him. Alana conjured up another one so that the room would not be in darkness during their absence. Ginny came second, followed by Dila, Vorin, Ana, Hermione, Daphne, Draco, Tracy, Susan and Luna. Alana descended last, yet the ball of light she had created stayed, hovering two meters above the stone paving, promising them a well-lit room to return to.

Excitement and fear gripped the youths presently. What manner of creatures dwelled within the tower? It was in the underground level, moreover. So far, Neither Dila, Ana, Vorin, nor the elven twins could detect any living things either by their bodily senses or mental probing, yet they were still uncertain about the validity and reliability of the eforts. They tried to soften their footsteps, but the boots still thudded rather heavily – and loudly – in that confined space. The staircase was two abreast wide, but Dusan had insisted that he wished for a good space for himself, earning several disapproving grumbles about cocky elflings from some people in the company; his statement eased the teses a bit, though: "Should there be any attack, we could move more freely on a single file."

They regarded Ginny's comment about treasures as a joke, nothing more, but they rephrased it when they passed a locked wooden door on their way down. As expected, chaos ensued closely after Dusan had unlocked the door and stepped in. Rows of sets of armour lined the sides of the storeroom, while on the middle of it gems and precious metals lay strewn upon the stone floor on large, tall heaps as if of no worth at all. Swords and shields were hung on or from nails on the walls, and quivers full of unstrung bows and arrows too. It was both a treasury and an armoury, it seemed.

The instant mayhem was caused by the factions in the party. Some wanted to grab some treasures with them or at least handle those precious things for a while, others only wanted to go down deeper and discover what lay on the bottom of the tower's foundation, while the rest wished to go up and either leave the tower altogether or up to the highest level.

It was not helping that Dila was torn. She had a weak spot for colourful jewels, precious or no.

Finally, though, fearing that they would be discovered with all the discord they had created in the echoing hall, she shooed her friends out and only took a last glance at the glittering gems before following them. `_I will come back.`_

When they met the bottom of the tower, however, the vow was forgotten for a moment. The sight welcoming them was not the least expected. The elven twins, who had heard the echo of gurgling water long before, had only thought it as their imagination. After all, no elf liked to be confined underground and always yearned for open air or something natural that could be found above the ground when one of that race wandered down like this.

There was a small pier which was attached to the last step of the staircase. It was made of the same stone which also made up the other parts of the tower. There was no boat at all, and no one. But there were some sturdy stone posts to tie ropes around for anchoring boats…

"Anyone wants to be a scout?" Dila asked in a quiet voice. Silence answered her, broken only by the eternal chuckle of the underground stream which stretched out from darkness and into another darkness, passing the pier unhindered. Her voice was echoed slightly by the damp stone walls hewn neatly through the hard layers of both dirt and stone the tunnel encountered. It was a hand-carved passage, not a natural one.

When no one moved, she exhaled in a resigned manner and fished out the rope which was ever present in one of her coat's pockets. "Okay. Now someone please provide me with a canoe."

Hermione reacted. Face anxious, she transfigured a handkerchief from her pocket into a small canoe, almost a kayak, fit for one person, which then was replaced to the water by a murmured spell from Ginny. Dila nodded tightly and stepped into the canoe after mustering the shivers creeping along her body. She was not prepared for this. Come to think of it, she had never been prepared to find a trapdoor leading down to the bowels of the hill she had climbed under the rising sun previously either. She should not indulge her friends by being willing to take up the responsibility of leader for the strange group for too long, she concluded at length in her exasperated desperation; she had been in the mind to settle down and rest, not to seek for more adventures – or at least not too much excitement.

Hermione, after showing the direction of the sea with her wand, said in a shaky whisper, "Come back on the first sign of danger, would you?" which Dila only answered with a small wry smile. She drifted away with the current to the right hand side of the pier afterwards, one end of the rope in her hands, keeping her on track and ready to guide her back to the pier if the mission was successful – or if she was discovered prematurely by whoever in the possession of the towers and the underground water passage.

It felt like a long way despite the moderately short time she spent rocking in the tiny vessel. The rope guided her faithfully in the ominous dark – as she did not dare to risk illuminating the path before her. It was like someone's arm or a guide dog for a blind child to her. That made her think about Ana, and it only served to urge her conscience to steer the boat around, home to her friends and family. `_Are they safe? Will I be safe? Am I safe now?`_

The hair on the nape of her neck prickled. Her skin crawled uncomfortably when a gust of chilly, damp wind blew from somewhere behind and she shuddered, upsetting the balance of the little boat. The echoing trickling of the underground stream did not help her mood at all, although she would appreciate it in any other time.

She was nearly thrown to the water when, after her nose had been assaulted by the smell of the sea and her ears by the distant noises of the waves and gulls, she heard a pair of voices talking not far ahead in a language she did not know.

Lilting voices… Elven voices…

`_The twins should be here_,` she thought grumpily even as she struggled – rather futilely – to right and still her bearing and vessel.

It was not an easy task too, veering the tiny floating thing around to aim for 'home'.

To say that Dila was in less than a good mood when she arrived in the pier was an understatement. With not so much as a curt, strained nod, she had already vanished into the other part of the stream, equipped with a double-bladed paddle Ana had created from thin air. The magically-lengthened rope was tied to a small hook on the back of her tiny rocking transportation.

It was no wonder, thus, that no one said anything when she arrived in the pier for the second time. Still in silence, they ascended the staircase once again after the boat and paddle had been returned to their original forms – wet and a little crumpled for the handkerchief that was the former boat, though.

They ate their lunch while climbing up the stairs, not wanting to spend more time tarrying in such petty affair – compared to the knowledge hidden within Dila's head and what they would find on top of the tower. Guiltily, they just remembered that the strange little man they had left behind in one of their tents had not been provisioned with food and drink. Yet, they argued to themselves, it would be a waste of time and energy – and possibly chance – if they came back there just to deliver a meal for their 'captive'.

After the light lunch, they increased their pace. The notions that there was nothing and nobody bothering them and that they would disclose the mystery of the brilliant white dot on the map at last pumped their adrenaline and strengthened their self confidence. Their breathing became louder and more ragged after a time, but they forged on, up the seemingly-endless set of stairs.

The sight waiting for them when the stairs leveled out was breath-taking, yes, but it pulled grumbles and curses from many people also. The reason was that despite the vast view and beautiful scenery provided by the unblocked windows surrounding the circular area, the stone sitting on a pedestal on the centre of the room, which they assumed was the "white light" they had been seeking, looked just like an ordinary ball-shaped crystal with a fiery centre deep within it.

"Looks like a crystal ball," Hermione scoffed, fairly disappointed. But she was attracted to it anyway. At length, she followed Luna, Dila and Ana, standing on one side of the pedestal and gazing into the dark stone; the other girls who had been crowded around the stone looked to be full of awe, reverence and gentle longing, and so she would like to know for herself what had caused such admiration.

In the end, the only person left behind was Draco, leaning to the side of the staircase with scornful boredom written clearly on his sharp-cut complexion.

Dila, her mind linked with her foster twin, had been the second to approach the pedestal after Luna, thinking that now she deserved the reward of her irritation and weariness. Ana tagged along with her, curious of the image and interest floating into her mind from Dila's; by that time, Luna had already positioned herself opposite the grey-eyed girl, her bulging dull blue eyes sparkling but fixed to the crystal.

What they found first was a beach and a harbour full of ready-to-sail ships not too far away from the Towers Hills. People were milling around and, when Dila willed the ball to reveal more of the people, they turned out to be tall elves, like those found in Alagaësia but somehow different – older and more solemn, as if they had seen and experienced many horrible times during their long lives. Involuntary gasps emitted from their mouths, dragging some more people to the ball, including the elven twins who were called mentally by Ana. Those elves were a big enigma many of them would like to solve.

All the same, Dila was not contented by only the elves. She loved the sea and so she moved the image farther and farther into the vast body of water; or at least it was her logical reason of moving. Some grumbled at first, yet then they discovered a range of unique, enchanted seemingly-islands on which they lingered long in curius contemplation. Padma wanted to explore the uninhabited islands farther, and so did Hermione, but Dila felt that she was tugged along to another place, farther from the islands. She argued that perhaps the enchanted islands were just barriers for unwelcome visitors for some unknown kingdom of very powerful magical beings. Hermione agreed grudgingly; Padma said nothing.

With some effort – mainly because of the disagreements between themselves –, they proceeded, and dragged the image slowly, painstakingly, away from the presumably-enchanted dots of land. The process was both tiring and regenerating, so alien that they would not have believed if they had not experienced it themselves. The scene unfolding before their eyes in the depth of the crystal later was so fascinating that they forgot the outside world for a while. It was a large solitary island with uneven, verdant landscape dotted with elven settlements and equipped with three harbours, big and small.

An utter silence, almost tangible, reigned when their eyes alit on the one destination that even they had not known to be present.

A larger span of land, another continent from the look of it, stretched as far as eyes could see. Big white surfs broke on its white beaches. Green hills satisfied some seasick people farther inland, impossibly-tall and looming mountain range attracted some of the more adventurous of them, and all the time the atmosphere just felt… peaceful; full of pure joy and free of any worldly burdens, dangers or taints. Their scarred souls hungered for the tantelising image of perfection shown deep within the crystal, but it was only the initial reaction. The peace seeped into their minds, hearts and souls unknowingly. The wild desire to go there was tempered into a strong but gentle and persistent longing.

Draco joined the group at length. He was curious about the changes of countenance his comrades endured. He looked intently into the ball after nestling his place a bit forcefully between Tracy and Daphne, but he could only glimpse the landscape of the alien continent before an unknown force nudged him to will the ball to show them to another place, higher and higher…

And thus their eyes alit on the peak of the highest mountain in the continent. But it was neither bare of life nor full of wild plantation as expected. Thirteen noble-looking men and women sat upon simple thrones, creating a half circle. It was debatable whether what happened next was simply a coincidence or not.

A man, seemingly the leder of the people, looked up and gazed into their eyes, into their souls. The thirteen youngsters sucked at their breaths, cheeks – or the entire faces for some – reddening.

_`Welcome, intruders_.`

The voice was powerful and firm, gentle despite the imperious tone. None answered him at first, yet then Dila, Ana and Luna said at once what just occurred to them automatically in a somewhat childish tone, `_Isn't that ironic, sir?`_

None of the company of thirteen around the stone, even the speakers, escaped the horrid shock that followed. The suffocating lack of sounds or voices was only broken by the man – after some time.

_`Do not fear. Someday you might find your way here and enjoy Valinor, at least for a span of time; we do not know how, yet this thought passed in my mind upon beholding your faces, children,` he chuckled._

Questions sprung right afterwards.

_`Who are you?`_

_`What do you want with us?`_

_`Where is Valinor?`_

_`What are the enchanted islands back there for? Are they really enchanted?`_

_`When can we go there? Will we all go?`_

_`Where are we presently? We are in another continent east of where you are, it seems.`_

_`Who are around you? You seem to be in a meeting of some sort…`_

_`Is it hard to reach there?`_

_`Are you an elf? Or a man? You seem to be the mix of both… and yet you don't seem to be any of the two. Hmm.`_

_`What is this crystal ball? Are we seeing some kind of prophecy container? You certainly have just given one. This is cool! I wish we could have such a good thing in our wo—`_

Another period of strangling silence fell on the thirteen people gathered around the pedestal. They had just been about to disclose that they were not from this world, whatever this was. It could mean their doom or a horrible span of interrogation for them.

Thankfully, the man in the ball only looked both amused and confused, having no spare thought to ask. The woman beside him chuckled with the loving mirth of a proud mother watching her children persisting to try something new.

And above all, the latter reaction was the one eliciting something from the youngsters. Some blushed. Others tried to look away but found that they were not able to, too entranced in the endearing beauty of the woman which reminded them of the stars.

But this living star was not cold at all. It was warm. Silvery but warm, as if the mixture between the sun and the moon.

They stood still for a long while, conversing with the people within the ring; but more often than not, they stayed silent while those peculiar people explained many things to them. Instinctively, they suspected that they were not told even so much as a small lake compared to the sea they had just traversed through the magical crystal, yet they did not complain at all.

The reason? Well, there had been so much information to take in in one go. Plus, it turned out that they were confronted one by one by each of the odd gathering on top of the mountain – who claimed that the Elves called them the Valar or Powers – and given a piece of advice or warning or both of them at once. The 'gifts' themselves were already too much for their minds to bear without the burden of any more knowledge.

Neither of them shared their private experiences afterwards, and neither asked for it from each other. They did not do so much as shifting from foot to foot at first, too immersed in their own thoughts to think of going down the stairs to the green grass outside the tower.

They inspected the view from the unbarricaded windows around the room from every point of the compass after the unexpected conversations, scrutinising all simply out of curiosety. The far north was filled with ice and barran patches of lands, it seemed, just like earth's north pole, yet it somehow screamed of cold malice lying dormant. It attained more and more colour and dynamics farther south. On the west, the sea spread wide and daunting – for those who loved to have their feet firmly planted on firm ground. If they squinted, they could see the first harbour town they had seen in the crystal on one of its shores.

Thick, ominous shadow seemed to cover a spot on the east. Beyond that, there was a desert ringed by grasslands, hills and occasional mountains. From casual inspection, they could easily note that there were less forests and highlands in that direction, and the temperature seemed warmer.

_`It looks like my birth country, minus the desert and the lack of highlands and forests_,` Dila mused sadly with a slight pang of longing which made her heart twinge. She and Ana had seldom visited their birth country after their parents had adopted them. Dila only realised now also that she had forgotten to tell their old friends that they would leave forever… But perhaps it had been a good coincidence? After all, none of them would have come with an answer to where they would go and why forever. Perhaps it was best not to tell Ana too, Dila sighed inwardly. She would not be unnecessarily hurt if she did not know.

_`What is under the shadows, by the way?`_

She returned to the gloomy spot, feeling with more than a surge of trepidation that the sight itself awakened her alertness to the level where every particle of her being noticed that there was a venomous, latent danger lurking near, more than that which she had found lurking in the north. She had trained herself, or rather the harsh circumstances had trained her, since she had agreed to aid one of her remaining brothers, Harry, who the Wizzarding World called the boy-who-lived, in a guerilla attempt of diminishing Voldemort's army of death eaters and dark creatures, until at last confronting him and his remaining followers on Hogwards' grounds. Looking to the shadowed patch of land made her think that Voldemort was regenerated and once more stalked the hallowed earth.

"Come, friends. Let us go," she murmured after the unease could no longer be settled simply by gazing around. Several startled people turned their attention to her, alarmed at her formal address and her disquieted look. She raised one hand before any of them could ask any questions and instead veered the subject of attention, requesting a slab of stone to carv a message on. The Valar had asked the travellers to help them warn the next people to lay eyes upon the seeing stone – as they called it –, and the youngsters felt that it was only right to return the courtesy after poking their noses into the seemingly-sacred land of the god-like beings.

Valar. Demigods… or perhaps they were really gods. The terms sounded strange and were even weirder when pondered. But those who called themselves servants of Eru – the Father of All – and vassels of the Creator, seemed harmless and in fact quite noble both in looks and hearts, so the company were not as disturbed as they could have been. Living in an environment constantly in war, the youngsters knew how to differentiate deceptive kindness from the pure one; Draco more than the others, and even Drraco had confirmed – a little grudgingly – that the people inside the ball did not mean harm to them. His comrades thought that his petulant reaction stemmed from the message, warning or advice imparted by the Valar to him, yet none of them broke a word about it; not to him and not to anyone else in their midst.

Ana used her power over earth and earthbound resources to carv out the letters of the message. Dila then warded the stone against the destruction of nature and time. Meanwhile, not wanting to be left out, their companions – under the instant command of Hermione – first stuck the stone to the pedestal and crystal ball – which the Valar named palantír – then warded the room against ill intentions.

All of them stood back to admire their work afterwards. They did not know the language used in this world they had been dumped into, much less its runic system, yet Ana had made sure that every person gazing at the stone tablet would discover the intention carried in the words as though they had had knowledge of English and its alphabets; after all, they had been communicating with the Valar through intentions, emotions and images rather than mere words.

"Beware of the peril brought by curiosity

Beware of the desperation wrought by unreached beauty

Turn thine eyes away from this seeing stone ere late it be

But gaze into it, stranger, if thou art in need of resting a weary heart for a while in the land across the sea

Only heed in mind that few go there and none come back, and few deserve what you see

Be always wary, and never thou indulge in this fleeting sanctuary."

The words were echoed in a soft murmur by thirteen lips, as if by that they had activated some kind of spell. When they turned on their heels and marched down the spiral staircase, it felt as if a task had been lifted from their shoulders… a task among many more to come.

The travellers who came out of the doors of the tower were no longer only the peculiar mixture each between merry children and grim warriors. They looked – and behaved, for the time being – almost like elves, ageless and tinged with thoughtfulness and wisdom. Their eyes shone brighter, and indeed, they felt like seeing the whole land and everything on it from a new perspective.

No wonder that the little man that was waiting for them by the path was gaping at them when they found him.


	6. Interlude 1: The Tamers of the Elements

The night was already old when Dila detached herself from the tents and her friends. She flopped heavily down beside the girls' tent. It was not long, though, before she moved farther, not wanting to be bothered by the discussion held inside between Hermione, Padma, Ginny and Tracy. She was seeking peace, and she would not have it with noises nearby.

Against wiser judgement, she trecked up the nearest hill and seated herself half-way up. The noises of both two-leggeds and the forest did not reach the place save when they were swept to her ears by the occasional breeze. Her ink-black hair, which reached down to her elbows, was let loose, as she wished to feel free and unburdened. For the same reason, she wore cotton breeches and T-shirt, feet bare. Her only weapon was a pair of hunting knives belted to her sides, hidden underneath her loose T-shirt, and her own inner power and mental abilities. One could never be too careful in a foreign land, after all, so despite her distaste of the caution, she had let those blades ruin what she called "a fun time with Mother Nature."

After a while adjusting to her surroundings and feeling more or less safe, she relaxed and expanded her mind, her eyes closed, her breaths slowing and deepening. Her legs, unlike in her other sessions of meditation, were stretched out lazily before her, prickled by the grass strands. Her soles and toes were caressed frequently by the cold tendrals of wind, yet the chill bothered her little. Her hands were positioned on her either sides, palms firmly planted upon the lush green bed. The grass covered her body up to her torso; while it did not provide her sufficient cover, she felt guarded nonetheless.

Firstly, instinctively, she sought for water resources available in the vicinity. Her favourite element was indeed water, and she could manipulate it the best among others. If the stream she had traveled on that afternoon had been above the ground, she would have rejoiced; but since she did not like being confined underground…

_`I should have told them about the secret passage_.` A thought popped up in her mind, distracting her just when she found the underground stream running not far away beneath her. `_Ah well. Later_,` she muttered, cursing inwardly for the distraction courtesy of her own thoughts. She had never been distracted only after some minutes of meditation.

Who knew that being a leader could be so taxing?

She needed several more minutes to return to a calm, concentrated state, and even then she had to begin her search right from the start again. This time, she made sure that her mind was completely vacant of thoughts, mingling without reservation with the wind and grass and soil and water underneath.

What she captured jerked her out of the meditation rather roughly with shock, unfortunately.

The earth was alive! But it was not like what she had felt in Alagaësia; there she had felt a thin layer of dormant power within the ground, present but not available for any purposes other than trecking or farming – the usual. It was not like in her own world either, where the earth was almost completely dead – and thus boring. Here the earth was unnervingly alive, thrumming with fingers of energy, as if a pair of divine hands were forever ready to reshape the stones and mountains and valleys and beaches and grasslands according to their master's will.

Who was the master, though? The Creator as spoken by the Valar? Was the Creator the same divine force that most population of her world believed in? what could she do about this new finding?

She did not discover the answers for the questions, yet the adventurous part of her mind quickly registered a list of things she could do with this latest finding of hers. She did not hesitate – at least not for long – to exploit the ideas.

Her mind traversed the earth freely, wildly, with what one would name reckless abandon. That was how she met Ana – mentally – while the other girl was doing just the same. Right then she and her counterpart learnt that having your minds colliding with one another could result in a painful headache as though you literally bumped your heads.

_`Earth is my territory! Go back to the water!`_ Ana yelled after the shock of their unexpected – and unfortunate – meeting had worn off. Dila recoiled at the vehemence which was not usually displayed by her twin, yet, just like a beaten dog, she struck back. That was how their long argument began.

They ended the word fight at the same time, as if by prior agreement, albeit. Everyone knew as a common fact that neither Ana nor Dila could hold a grudge against each other for more than ten minutes or one day at the most, and they had just proven the notion once again. Tiredly, Dila retreated from her sister, craving for a body of water to explore and to anchor her mind while she was meditating. Her prior session of meditation had been ruined by the excitement, and so she had to start it all over again. If she usually only needed one hour of meditation to replace eight hours of sleep in a relaxed day, it increased to two hours during a tiring exercion, and even more when the session was disturbed – rather violently – by anything else like what happened now. Tonight just seemed not like her lucky night…

She found a small calm lake far away from the cluster of hills and instantly settled in without bothering to check for the safety of its surroundings. No one would hurt her spirit while she was protected by the water, anyway, or so she thought in her grumpiness and over-confidence. She could sense Ana settle down in the woods nearby the lake, and for an odd reason which she was yet to grasp, she felt rejoiced, contented and even more secure.

Not an hour later, they had been frolicking merrily in a layer of underground water, where the earth and the water melted into one. They had found a time, place and situation in which they were most comfortable and secure. They were in their respective elements, and yet they were also being there for one another.

They had been bonded mentally and spiritually also in their double blood adoption, not only physically, and they reveled in each other's spiritual company ever since. Now was just the fruit – among many – they reaped from the bondage. None could tell that their bond was artificial, as not many pairs of twins had the gift of such close union.

_`Let's explore_,` Ana chirruped, meanwhile winding herself around Dila like a puppy to its brethren, feeling totally secure after a time spent with her twin. Dila beamed both mentally and physically, sending waves of joy for the yet-another bout of self confidence and openness disclosed by Ana. Said girl was usually silent and reticent, especially in the presence of more than one person or not her family. Dila always rejoiced whenever that mask was cast off, even just for a while.

Her gleeful and excited response took off any sensible thoughts from the latter's mind, thus. She agreed heartily to the proposition, and not long after they had risen to join the moving air, Dila's fire element making the wafting breeze unusually warm in the autumn night. They travelled farther inland, discovering snatches of conversation in tongues foreign to them and customs alike. The inhabitants of the areas around their starting point were of the same race as the little man they had recklessly taken with them several days ago; they felt ashamed of themselves for this. How if the little man had been searched for and wanted by his family?

Farther and farther they rode on the wind, until their guilt and shame were but mere shadows on the back of their minds. They spied the thoughts of ancient trees, brushed across countless houseless spirits – which unnerved them above all –, sneaking into houses, eager to gather as much information as permitted by the length of time they possessed. None of the languages they encountered made sense to them, yet one thing was sure.

The lands and countries in that continent had been ravaged by war, a large-scaled one which reminded the twins – with some trauma – about the long battles between Light and Dark in their own world. It seemed that they had been thrust into yet another war-torn world instead of a peaceful haven to spend the rest of their lives in…

_`Should we aid their war?` _Ana, openly dejected, sighed while they were brushing across the Elven harbour they had seen twice that day.

_`If they need it… which, from the look of it, they do,` _Dila snorted. Then, her agitation subsiding a little, she, too, sighed. `_I thought I would like to explore the new world just like an adventurer in a new land, but I never thought of wars; at least not in such a large scope…` _wrapping herself tight around Ana, she murmured as if a broken child in a bout of insecurity. Now it was Ana who tried to comfort her by letting her spirit encase Dila's.

_`Come on_,` she coaxed just after a moment, guiding Dila away from the harbour. She would not let her twin wallow in misery. At least, to her, what Dila could do was to be joyful for her in the element she mastered… A rather selfish thought, she knew, yet she was too harassed to notice it.

They grew tired after thrise roaming around the vast span of the continent's western half. The sun had just peaked out of the eastern horizon. At last, they conceded without a word to return to their own bodies – and later to their friends –, hopes of a proper rest, hot breakfast and – moderately – safe adventures filling their minds.

Before they could fully return to their bodies, however, disaster occurred in the form of Ginny and Hermione.

"You should've told us!" Hermione, despite her breathlessness the result of running, shrieked as soon as she spotted Dila. The other girl tumbled backwards but managed to fish out her daggers in the process. Hermione would have died at the point of the blades had she not been quick enough to proclaim her identity – "I'm Hermione, you moron!"

Both girls were equally shaken, yet the only one who slumped prostrated to the grassy bed was Dila; Hermione only landed – hard – on her bum.

"Umm… Dila?" Hermione, after the initial shock had subsided, called timidly. The other girl had not issued another reaction, her dark-grey orbs, saturated with shock and daze, gazed upwards to the brightening sky without seeing. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Hermione would have assumed her dead, struck by Avada Kedavra like some of their fallen comrades and family members less than three months ago.

"Dila?" she repeated to no avail.

Calling upon her knowledge and distant ability of mind arts, she gathered her courage and sought out Dila's mind with her own in a last, desperate attempt. She toppled back herself on her discovery: Dila seemed to be on the brink of death! Her soul was barely intact in her body, and even that remnence was in a struggle to maintain its place…

But even as Hermione was digesting the chilling information, she noticed that Dila became more and more alive in a matter of minutes. The girl flexed her fingers and toes experimentally, as if she had not used them in a long time, then blinked. Noticing Hermione, she offered a wan smile. Hermione, on the other hand, frowned.

"What happened?" Hermione asked weakly. She wanted to rain Dila with more questions but gulped them back when the girl's visage darkened with anger and annoyance.

"Next time, don't startle me like that. You could have killed me," Dila grunted, her words a little slurred. Hermione bit her lips, her brown eyes wide; she did not understand still, and Dila's statement only poked the fire of her curiosity to burn brighter.

"I…" Her fury drained abruptly, Dila looked away. "Let's say that my soul was travelling out of my body for some time before you came."

Creepy.

Both girls cringed, the same opinion floating in their minds.

"You know that my elements are water and fire, right?" growing desperate, Dila offered another, less daunting explanation. Hermione nodded mutely, her face yet ashen.

"My spirit was with the water, then Ana took me with the wind, one of her elements…"

Dila, giving up, challenged Hermione with a stare. No one in their company had known about what the twins could do with their respective elements other than shading them from rain, summoning cool breeze into a windowless room, kindling fire, digging holes for their tents' poles, or the occasional show-offs. They had never told their comrades for fear of being called necromancers or worse… But the worst was yet to come, it seemed.

Sighing resignedly, Dila folded up her knees and propped her elbows on them. She gazed up to the pale grey-blue sky, which held a promise of clearing into a baby blue shade soon, seeking to comfort her own mind and racing heart. She felt tired, very tired, and was afraid to confess it to anyone, not even Ana or Hermione – although Ana probably suffered from the same exhaustion. Only now did she feel the shame created by her act, which she dubbed selfish. She should not have so carelessly romped around when there are more important matters to use her energy into solving…

"Tired?" Hermione asked, hesitant. She got only a vague nod for the answer.

"You have too much pride for your own good," she muttered while hauling Dila to the latter's feet. "Urgh! Have you gained much weight overnight?" she grunted as her body staggered and leant dangerously to Dila, unable to support the unexpected burden assigned to her limbs.

Despite her best effort, Dila slipped from her arms, her knees buckling and hitting the grass. Both girls sighed heavily. Hermione scowled while Dila just looked hopeless.

They kept the 'poses' only for a moment, all the same. A shrill cry seemed to wake Dila up from her trance-like state and replaced Hermione's reproving face with one of utter surprise and horror.

Ana was screaming.

The curly-brown-haired girl sprinted down the hill to the source of the noise at Dila's urging look. Dila herself scrambled to her feet behind and lumbered like a drunk after the quickly-retreating form of the bookworm; Planwheel, they named her, she thought, wondering if "Wheelfeet" would be better given how fast Hermione ran.

It turned out that Ana had shrieked automatically after Ginny had shaken her shoulders from behind. The red-haired girl had not let so much as a noise to inform her arrival. The latter was currently sprawled some feet behind Ana, confessing angrily that she had just been hit by a ball of compact air on her chest.

"Just don't do it again next time," Dila muttered as she was trying to aid Ana's spirit to return to its full function in her body. She was doing as best as she could with the task given her own weak condition. "I hope no one heard you screech like a banshee like that, An."

They were on the slope of the hill which bore the Seeing-Stone Tower – as they named it. She was afraid that the loud noise had traveled to some keen Elven ears.

She was too busy fussing over Ana to notice several people darting up the hillside.

"Are any of you hurt?" Alana asked, panicked. "Dila? Ana? Ginny?"

"It sounded like Ana. What happened?" Dusan implored.

"Can't you let me be in peace for a while, Kensingtons?" Draco snapped. His glare was ruined when he rubbed his eyes. His sharp tone lacked its bite too due to the yawn that followed the comment.

Dila, after Ana had recovered, rose slowly and inspected her friends. In spite of the instinct to save her already-wounded pride, she had to confess to the company about the folly that would – almost certainly – result in the delay of their journey. Briefly, she stole a glance to Ginny, noting – with a sinking feeling in her stomach – that the bright-red-haired girl must long to be reunited with Ron very much; after all, she was trapped in the same compelling instinct to see herself that Harry was well.

"I am sorry," she began then gulped. It had seldom been that hard for her to convey something, her being more confident and outgoing than Ana.

"I…"

_`How to tell them? 'We can't go because I and Ana did a foolish thing by frolicking around this continent in spirit forms'? 'I'm totally exhausted after last night's romp around the continent and hope to recover first'? …`_

Nothing seemed right and fitting. Dila fidgeted under the scrutiny and attention of eleven pairs of eyes. Ana, curled up behind her legs, chose to leave the matter completely to Dila, as she needed to build up her own strength back.

Ginny frowned with confusion. Hermione returned to her reproachful mode. Tracy was a little surprise with Dila's rare act of nervousness. Daphne cocked her head slightly to one side, curious both with Dila's act and her unsaid words. The elven twins stood perfectly still, their faces impassive yet their large, slightly slanted eyes keen with attention. Draco was leering, impatience clearly written on his sharp, angular visage. Padma and Luna looked to be turning away inwardly, seeking another thing to pay attention to in the form of reverie…

Exhaling a sslow breath, Dila steeled herself, glowered briefly to everyone and blurted, "Can we stay for one more night here? I and Ana went… scouting… last night and we are very sore and tired now. We could go before dawn tomorrow if you like, and besides, I think we aren't properly rested anyway after the trip to get here. How about that?"

She did not pay much attention to the argument that broke afterwards. Silently, she vowed, `_I won't do that ever again. I won't fall into the same trap twice. This has been enough. It's the Valar's territory, anyway…`_

_`But I want to meet Ulmo … He wasn't in the gathering we saw in the palantír.`_

_`Crap!`_

They descended the hill, still arguing. Dila scowled to no one in particular, her mind meanwhile arguing with itself. Ana trailed after her with Daphne, both silent.


	7. Chapter 5: Hell Yeah!

The sixteen ex-students crowded the pad, standing tensely on it in a tight circle, their arms linked in a painful manner. They did not know how the pad would transport them; whether it would be like using a portkey or aparating or riding a broom or something totally new. Their resolve had been set, though.

Seconds ticked by. Then, when they had begun to doubt the potency of the trans-world pad and think themselves silly, a blinding white light lit the pad below their feet, eliciting gasps and moans when it reached their down-turned eyes. The still air around them was stirred; a breeze blew, making them tighten their link with each other out of fright and nervousness. Breaths were hitched when the wind picked up speed, creating a small funnel on the empty space on the middle of the circle. The sixteen teenagers and children were pushed back when the funnel grew, yet from behind, a solid wall of moving air blocked their escape from the pad. They were trapped within a whirlwind.

Some screamed, but their voices were drowned by the rumbling sound of the wind. Shock and mortal fear lodged in each heart when their arms were wrenched from one another, nearly dislocating the limbs from their sockets. Hearts beat frantically as the realisation that each of the sixteen was now a single individual in his or her struggle sank in. The links, both physical and mental, had been broken, and each person now was spun around in each a mini whirlwind.

At least, that was what Ron felt as he was sucked down by the whirlwind. He was pivotting on his heels but with a sinking feeling in his stomach that told him that he was dropping from a height.

Then,

Thump!

"Ow…"

He found himself sprawled on a thick bed of sand, a mouthful of the cream-coloured particles filling his mouth and stifling his moan. The sand tasted salty, and there was a salty tang in the air around him.

He had landed in a beach somewhere. Dared he think that he had been transported to a new world? Or was it just a beach somewhere in England – Brighton Beach, Maybe? Or was he on the other side of the earth – Indonesia or Australia or Papua New Guinea or New Zealand, perhaps? After all, the one who had operated the pad was Dila, a former Indonesian who had spent much of her time travelling around the globe to each and every beach possible – that water freak…

Dila…

Ginny…

_`Where is Ginny?`_

His heart sank. Where was his sister? Somewhere along the beach? In another beach in another part of the world? He would kill Dila if the last was true!

But why had the transportation gone awry in the first place? Whose fault had it been? Dila had been renowned for her concentration, if not for her patience; surely she would not risk her own life and those of her friends with a mistake among the few that she had commited in mind arts? Or was it the Ministry's fault? After all, they had been the first people trying the latest experiment, and the Ministry of Magic had never stated whether the transportation would work…

Well, regardless, Ginny was not here, wherever here was, and Hermione his girlfriend too. Harry, his friend and partner in almost every trouble, was nowhere near, or the – disconcerting – twins Dila and Ana. In situations like this, even Draco's presence would be appreciated – at least for the first hours.

But they all were not here, and Ron currently had a new problem.

He spat the sand, wiped his mouth, and scrambled into a sitting position, perched on the back of his boots. He looked around from under his intact hood,

And found humanoid creatures with swords bared in their hands blocking his every escape route.

_`I should've been gone by now! I lost my only chance…`_

_`But did I ever have a chance? They could've been there for ages, for Merlin's sake!`_

Shaking ever so slightly, he rose to his feet and once again looked around. To his horror, the little troop closed in on him, their glinting blades ever so poised to taste his blood, or so he thought.

_`What a nasty game!` _the upset boy exclaimed to himself when the one that stood directly before him took some steps forward, causing him to – by reflex – retreat. Unfortunately, someone other had taken the iniciative to bar his way from behind with the sharp edge of his… or her… blade; it hovered only an inch from the nape of his neck!

"What do you want?!" unable to contain himself anymore, Ron blurted. The creature before him tilted its – or his or her? – head in a sharp, wordless inquiry. Murmurs broke among the others.

"Eka ai fricai!" growing more panicked, the boy half-squeaked in the elven tongue of Alagaësian elves. _**I am a friend!**_

_`What's wrong?` _he hovered on the brink of hysteria when none of the – what he presumed – elves answered. `_Aren't they elves? Surely I have landed somewhere in Alagaësia? Galbatorix has been defeated, so we should be fine here…`_

"Merlin's beard!" he yelped when, unknown to him, one of the unearthly-looking people had snuck closer and flipped his hood back to flop uselessly on top of his pack. Self-conscious, he fumbled to put the hood back on with his left hand, his right one never leaving his wand.

"Maedhros!" one shouted, appalled and furious, jabbing one slender finger at the direction of Ron's bright-red hair. Ron froze midway and gaped at the shouting person. Said person's face was now flushed with anger and his dark grey-blue eyes were glinting dangerously, not caring if his current pose was comical.

Apparently, none of the other elves paid attention to what their comrade was doing also. Angry muttering and hisses replaced the murmurs, and many pairs of eyes were fixed distastefully on Ron's hair, which gleamed as if with its own light under the rays of the setting sun.

_`What's wrong with my hair?`_

He repeated his exasperated inquiry with some additional gestures, focusing the question on the elf who had shouted that weird word.

"What—" He stared inquiringly, pointedly, at the offending person who still wagging his index finger at him. "—is wrong—" He pointed at the elf's furious features then waved at the others'. "—with my hair?" He pointed at his chest then tugged at a fistful of red hair blown by the breeze to his face.

The pointing elf became more furious than before. Now, though, his comrades seemed to come to an opposite conclusion and worked instead to restrain the near-bursting elf. "Ah yes," Ron muttered while he was being ushered like a criminal away from the beach, "at least I don't die right now."

He was not permited to put on his hood, for whatever reason, and could only see the surrounding environment over the shoulders of his tall captors. What he saw, though, was fascinating enough to draw him from his current predicament. Apparently, he had landed on the only sandy beach along the coast. The rest was either covered by patches of mangrove, formed of high cliffs, or rocky, jagged like the waves themselves. What intrigued him the most was the big harbour that welcomed his eyes in the end of the journey. Fleeting forms milled about the docks and in the ships or boats. The vessels seemed majestic but also practical, and Ron found himself wishing that he could share this experience with his friends; Dila would feel like in heaven with those water transportation and various beaches!

Beautiful voices in a lilting language drifted to his ears, brought by the wind, occasionally cut by patches of songs. All the unearthly sounds and the surprises which had rained on him endlessly since his unfortunate landing in that Merlin-knew-where land slowly but surely crept to his head, all the same, and Ron found himself encountering a splitting headache just before he was brought into a mansion-like building sitting by the harbour. `_A good timing, eh? And I thought there's no side effect of that blasted little tornado_,` he grunted while pinching the bridge of his nose with the tips of his thumb and index finger. Elven voices had never worked wonders with him, whether in Alagaësia or wherever this was. Yes, they were beautiful, but only when he was ready to receive such sounds… Certainly not now.

He blinked furiously like an owl in sudden light when they entered the dim vicinity of the entrance hall of the building. His unfocused eyes did not help his sight at all, only worsening it. His heavy, arratic footfalls differed greatly from the light footsteps of his captors. Several passing elves looked at the captors weirdly then scowled when their eyes alit on Ron as if he was a pest. The odd looks were lifted from their beautiful faces as if they had known why Ron was brought there, replaced by deep contempt and disgust.

That, made Ron more confused, angry and overall miserable. Thus, when he was shoved into a room after one of his captors had proceeded to inform of their arrival, he only scowled tiredly at the bearded elf who faced him with impassive look.

The weird elf asked him a question. Ron could only sigh and shrug, showing his annoyance and bewilderment, his hands supporting his spinning head.

_`I hope that blasted Malfy didn't put anything in my drink before we went to the Ministry_,` the boy thought fiercely while massaging his head. `_He'll pay if yes. Well… if he did nothing, there's still a way.`_

Someone pushed him from behind. Ron staggered then, failing to keep his balance amidst the turmoil in his skull, fell sprawled on the sandstone floor, only reaching out in time with his left hand to save his nose from breaking. Faintly, he heard the bearded elf snap at one of his captors – possibly the one who had shoved him. His voice was gruffer than the other elves, the boy noted as he tried – in vain – to right himself up. `_He can be compared to Rhunon in the matter of 'speciality'… Heh. I wonder who is the older between those two ancient elves…`_

He squirmed, hoping to be able to tuck his elbows beneath his chest, cursing the weight of his pack on his back and layers of clothes meanwhile. He succeeded in planting his elbows on the corse, hard brownish floor, propping him up a bit, true, but he was not able to do more than that given his failing strength. `_What's wrong with me?_ _Am I this weak?` _He began to panic; the realisation sank into his boggled mind. `_How am I to defend myself then? Merlin's beard! I can't even talk to them in any ways. Arrogant pointy ears…`_

"Hey!" Ron squawked, his voice sounding feeble to his own ears, when he was hauled upright all of a sudden. His last sensation before blacking out was that the world felt like toppling upside down.

He regained consciousness ensconced in a comfortable bed, not lavished but cozy and warm like that at home. He did not open his eyes, thinking that he was in his room, recovering after his brother twins had pulled a prank on him. Anytime now, he would hear their mother shriek from the kitchen downstairs; the scream was impossible to block, and he doubted a banshee would not envy Molly Weasley when the matriarch of the family was in her screeching mode.

But the sound never came. There was not even any tell-tale signs of it – pots banging, chair legs clanking, ladel plonking…

Ron blinked. His mind was still hazy. He suspected it was one of the twins' concoctions gone awry. His movements, even of the smallest parts of his body, were lethargic, and he was bearly aware of his surroundings.

_`They'll pay for this stupid prank_,` the red-haired boy grumbled, giving up trying to sit up on the bed…

Which did not criek when his weight was shifting on it.

_`Weird.`_

_`Where am I? Where is my bed?`_

Again, he forced himself to rise. This time, out of shere stubbornness, he prevailed. He had only enough energy left to arrange his pillows – no, the pillows, for they were too soft and downie to the touch – haphazardly on the headboard of the bed to prop himself back to. For a while, he indulged himself in the comfort brought by the pillows, the bed and the warm blanket draped over him. But then, with a long-suffering sigh, he began the dreadful task of trying to identify his environment. The twins could not be so nasty as to leave him somewhere he did not know, could they?

He peeped from under his eyelashes as if expecting a basilisk to stare right at him from a hidden corner. In fact, his thoughts were drifting to the Chamber of Secrets and the basilisk that had haunted it. The chaos which had occurred in the end of his second year far underneath his scool had been a messy business involving more people than he liked.

And now, with the 'stony' feeling around him and the deafening silence which seemed to seep into every millimeter of sandstone and fourniture, Ron felt like standing amidst the cavernous hall of the Chamber of Secret once again.

Well, minus the unconscious Ginny, the furious basilisk, the petrified – out of shere fear – Gilderoy Lockhart, the frantic Harry, the mad memorial embodiment of Lord Voldemort, and Harry's twin older sisters by adoption who had come swishing down – yes, nearly without a sound – to aid their precious little brother.

In other words, there was nothing quite similar between the two places and occurances. Even the torch-lit walls were reddish brown and not dark grey, and there was no single snake statue to be found. Indeed, the only fourniture – aside from the bed – he saw there was an empty nightstand beside the bed, low enough so that its surface was on a level with the bed's edge.

So why did he felt that the walls loomed around him? They were not tall and far apart to be too disconcerting…

But yes, if he thought it over again, he would rather be in the Chamber of Secret in the end of his second year right then, even though it meant looking at his beloved little sister limp like a corpse on the feet of some alien giant-sized statue, Harry hovering nearby protectively, somewhat clueless and weaponless. This room felt like…

Like…

_`A cage!`_

"Cage," Ron repeated the one word coming to the front-most part of his mind. A cold sense settled in his chest and stomach, soon spreading to all over his body including his head. He was caged, it was certain from the barranness of the fourniture, the windowless room and the small, hardy-looking door, and – what he had just noticed – how he was only clad in a faded T-shirt and an equally-faded army-styled flexible breeches.

He was garbed in his inner-most set of clothing, and none of his remaining clothes or possessions were in sight. He had been stripped off nearly to the point of nakedness and without a way to defend himself. He was trapped in a room in the middle of nowhere awaiting – perhaps – his doom…

A Weasley would not tolerate that. Their will and endurance were often said to be all an act of stone-headedness. However, those qualities, people also admitted, were a fire as bright as their hair which was hard to quench or overlook.

_`I have to get out of here and claim back my things. Then I have to go peaking around for my friends_.` Ron was determined now. And like those people also said, a Weasley coming to a determination was one to be cautious about…

As it was later proven when two grim-looking elves came in, an armed guard proceeded by another who bore a tray of food and a pitcher of water. They only lingered long enough for the tray to be safely put on the nightstand. There was no word exchanged even between them; no gestures, no looks. They were not aware that their coming there was considered a folly to the captive.

The elves had let the door open, thinking that the number of guards posted outside it was enough should the stranger try to flee. The space left in the absence of the door plank was filled with fresh air, drifting from the sea into the room.

The smell of salt and fish. The smell of freedom for Ron, at that time. He had never been so grateful nor so rejoiced by the 'special aroma' – as Dila put it – of the sea as what he felt right now. His heart swelled with renewed purpose and survival instinct. The heaviness attached to his limbs and head dispersed, and soon he had stood on bare feet beside the bed, poised. Even though the door had been closed over a minute ago, the scent of salt and fish and ashore sea weeds lingered in his nostrils in surprising sharpness.

_`Sand. Sea. Freedom. Friends.`_

He repeated the words over and over again while warming up his body, flexing his muscles and – at the same time – building up his courage into a level of shere boldness. The tray of food and drink lay forgotten on the nightstand, Ron fearing that the sustenance had been sullied by sedative drug – or worse. He would not touch anything given by those prejudice creatures with pointed ears, he vowed and glowered at the imposing-looking door.

The guards outside his cell were in for a nasty surprise.

They stood with poised stance out of the small cell-like room, aware of the trouble brewing inside like a storm. But they did not know how the 'storm' would break and if it would impact on them, nor did they anticipate how big it was.

Apparently, the power was not as large in amount as expected, yet it was intimidating on itself due to its nature – being out of the guards' might to parry.

The door vanished in a split second. Six full-grown Elves did not have the time to even process what they saw. They tumbled as one to the floor, faces frozen in dumbstruck, morbid countenance, peacefully unconscious. A blur sped pass the entangled bodies and wove its way through the crowded streets, extricating itself from the clump of buildings.

Ron was aware of little, save the wind whipping the skin on his face and ruffling his hair. The air carried the scent he had caught before, only much stronger, and he reveled in it. If he met Dila again, he thought, he would promise never to tease her obsession with the sea again – at least not so much. But for now, in his loneliness, he had to do with what he had in the meantime.

Which were not much.

His bare feet were sore from slapping against the rough sandstone floor of the less-traveled passages. His lanky legs felt like rods of lead swinging as if on their own accord, numb from the constant, relentless movements and the pain in the soles. Sweat covered his face, neck, back and front, wetting his T-shirt and sending chills into his skin from the contact with the wind. He did not dare to stop even for a moment, despite his newest problem on himself: that his lungs burnt horribly and in pain as if thousands needles were jabbed through them. Pursuit groups were sent after him; worse, there were some who were to block his escape route.

He did not know how he ended up in his current place, far from the more-or-less-friendly ground. He refused to admit whether being stranded far in a rocky beach and nearest to the sea was better than whatever the elves would do with him if they got him. Seeing how impossible the formation of rocks was to cross from land, he questioned to himself if suddenly his feet had gone as light as the elves he knew or if he had lost weight during his captivity.

_`Silly_,` Ron gritted out as a ghust of wind crashed with his gangly form perched atop the only-roughly-'seatable' rock in the formation. He shivered violently from the chill that seeped right into his marrows. The sweat drops were cooled down – fast – by the damp breeze and now, instead of heating his body, they did the opposite. His lungs got no reprieve; they failed to stock much fresh air as they shuddered to fend off the cold from going into them and dampening the remaining air inside.

The sky had darkened considerably. Ron, when he was not cursing at his situation or 'Malfy' or Dila, noted with no small amount of amazement at his sudden ability of navigating in the dark. True, one could do things unexpected if one was pitted against a desperate situation… But this extreme? He did not think so. A voice in the back of his mind told him that there was something greater at work here, yet he ignored it at the moment.

The reason was simple: Now he was totally alone amidst sharp, jagged rocks formed like the teeth of some giant shark, defenseless and naked against the elements. Right before him was an expanse of immeasurable body of constantly-moving salt water, and judged from the cherning surfs nearby, the rock formation opened up to a gaping underwater ravine.

His brow felt hot after a while, contrast to the rest of his body, which gave him the idea that fever was slowly creeping into his body from all the exercion and exposure to a stark change of environment. `_Only what I need_,` he remarked glumly, his fingers listlessly dancing on the damp breeches to provide him a mere measure of entertainment to pass the cruel night with.

His half-closed eyelids flew wide open when some of his fingertips came in contact with something hard stored within one of his breeches' pockets. `_What is it?`_

_`Why didn't I notice it before?` _His excitement and curiosity grew. Carefully, he removed the thing from his pocket and stared at it under the rays of the stars.

It was a mirror. A magical mirror for communication between the people in the company.

A feral grin broke on his face. His hope was not fully doused yet, after all. The fate had bestowed upon him the glittering square thing there on his right palm, clutched by slightly-shaking fingers.

"Dila." The whisper came as bearly a murmur. The mirror grew warm, a sign that the magic had been activated, and soon the estatic but worried face of the person he had intended to speak with swam into view on the surface of the mirror, dimly lit by the dancing reddish light of a campfire.


	8. Chapter 6: The Sea and the Mariners

September 15, 1997

Hmm… I have not written in this book for so long. Admitedly, this one is fairly new, a gift from Ariana for my last birthday, with no page filled yet.

I swore never to write journals again a long time ago… Ah. Perhaps I need to start it anew and forsake my old vow. This world, after all, is a brand new one, not where I suffered and was belittled. Here I shall begin a new life, and suitably, I should record the life-changing turns I take.

Here is the first one of them – since I do not think our arrival was quite a turning point; it was merely a starter. I hope that I can look back with memory and fondness to the day recorded in this entry.

We departed – two days ago – in the last leg of our journey to the Grey Havens while the morning was still young. We rode on the silvery-coated horses the Kensington own. I would prefer walking to riding in such a good scenery, yet I could not deny that this was a good move if we were to maintain appearance and hide our magical ability as long as possible. We could not provide transportation for ourselves abruptly from thin air when in the presence of the small man; he was too perceptive! I sincerely hope he had a reason, that wway, to believe that the horses had only been following us from… inside the forest… when they were not present. If he later became too terrified of the sea and did not say anything, then the knowledge he had would stay hidden until we were away from wherever the Grey Havens was, we assumed – and still do. I know, it is a cruel thought; but necessary. "Necesity" is also the answer to why we brought the small man along to fetch Ronald Weasley in the first place. (People, even – shamefully – I, yet believe in the unlucky number of thirteen.)

I was woken early in the morning by Ardila. I imagine it was not a pleasant task for her, since I and most other people in the company 'loved' our cosy beds and blankets and pillows still. (I admit, after a few touches here and there and some improvement, the two tents Ginevra and her brother coveted from their storeroom are more than likeable as livingquarters.) I needed a full span of fifteen minutes before gaining a bone to sit up, and even then, not all of my tent companions had already been up and about. Ginevra had been awake and bustling around the kitchen corner of the tent, of course. She had never slept peacefully since the day we had ended up in this strange land, since she had realised that she had been separated from her brother and boyfriend at once.

Yes, I envied her – and still do. She has a boyfriend and a loving, if overprotective, older brother – it used to be six! I? I only had one younger sister, and she was spoiled horribly; I do not know if she survived the last battles, by the way. I thought, if somehow I could exchange my family's wealth with at least one of her 'good' brothers…

Or, if not, with her boyfriend.

I shook my head a little at that thought – although now I am stifling a chuckle in remembrance of it. It would not do me good, I argued to myself, thinking jealously about one of my comrades, risking sparks of disharmony among us. We had already had to strive to be united one to another right from the start.

Well, I did not know Ronald or Neville more than mere acquaintances, and the same applied to Harry Potter – who seven years ago has been renamed Harlend Kensington according to his blood-adoptive family tradition –, and still do not, but it did not stop me from inquiring to myself whether they managed to live on their own in this totally-new environment.

I flowed alongside my steed, which Ariana had told me was called Finka – what an odd name. Not many were as fluent as me… or more. Draco kept swaying dangerously on his steed, although the mare was the most patient of the herd – from my inspection. I did not want to imagine how he would cope with Meeps, Ardila's spirited mare… I guessed it would do Draco's temper and crude tongue some benefit were he to fall from his steed, but, for the sake of the company, I prayed that the mare managed to bear him safely to our destination.

I thanked my luck that it was fall season. I did not have to cope up with burning, blinding sunlight or blistering heat of the summer. I made use of the opportunity as well as I could; hood thrown back and hair loose. I rode with Patricia at the very end of the trotting procession, camera poised to take photograph of good sceneries. If I were to mention the benefits of resolving to participate in this mad adventure, I would say that one of them was the pristine natural environment! (The opinion stays the same.) I would know if I had visited a light woodland area like what I was passing then in my home world: birds in abundance, trees swaying gently in a fresh breeze free from pollution, beautiful wild flowers untouched by destroying human hands, bushes with ripe wild berries just a short distance away from the edge of the forest, clear air…

The camera was put into work when my eyes spied a small blue-and-yellow bird fleeting nearby. The sound of the devise crackling filled the otherwise 'natural-sounded' vicinity; I cringed but said nothing. Some heads swivvled back to gage the source of the slight noise, shaking and smiling or grumbling, but then they stared back ahead again. I paid them no heed. As far as I recall, it was one of the few joys I had that day.

I had never been in the company of such many people; truth be told, I never delighted in such. It was only fortunate that there was no one speaking for a long time. The distant noises of the sea, the sighing brees among twigs and branches, the songs of different kinds of birds, the chitter-chatter of squirrels… All would be drowned out when two-leggeds began to speak. (Yes, I value the loneliness in the care of the nature highly.)

The other reason for my joy was that I did not bask in attention; I tended to shy away from it (although now it is almost a completely different matter). I had never been taken care of before, so it felt odd that I had at least four people – Ardila, Ariana, Ginevra and Hermione – tending to me. I would be just fine if they ignored me – better, even, perhaps. But I realised that it should only be natural for one in a close company to take care of one another.

I had been in such a tight-nit environment, true, yet I had not been the centre of it; it was Estoria, always Estoria. Briefly, I imagined how if Estoria were here… (Musing about her and what she could or would do is one of my pastimes until now. It is not good, I know, but I cannot help.)

The pain was too much to bear at first. For once, I could lay claim upon a group of people as my own – truly my own. I did not wish my sister to take it from me, not even in my thoughts. This group was mine, mine alone, my new family. The thought sprung up firstly during the long silence that morning while riding (the drawback of the absence of conversation, I assume).

We broke into a canter when the sun was on its zenith. I was glad of the change; not because we could speed up our journey, but because in that way I could get rid of thoughts about Estoria and my past life, and we could get fresh supply of cooling breeze. The sun was yet hot this time of year when on its peak.

My back-length blood-red strands were blown back like an outlandish banner behind me. I still remember the fresh coolness creeping along my scalp… Before me, many of the females in the groups were doing the same (letting their hair loose), excluding Hermione – whose curly brown hair has always been less than shoulder-length – and Patricia – who, I guessed, did not want to tackle tangled hair later. I allowed a small grin to grace my lips. I let forth no more, fearing a possible ploy to take advantage on my weaknesses. After all, I have lived seventeen years with impassivity masking my true emotions, so why should the situation change?

I had been letting out emotions and opinions more than I had ever before during these first legs of our adventure (or perhaps our reunification survival struggle, more appropriately), though.

We halted near dusk in a clearing by the road. Despite the placement, the spot was well-hidden in a thicket of elm trees. If not for Ariana and whatever power she was using that had supplied for her sight-impairment wonderously, we would never find it. The clearing was small, but enough for the fourteen of us to spread blankets and sleep under the stars. Indeed, we had agreed on that arrangement – sleeping in the open air – despite Draco's protest. I, for one, was happy about it. (Well, I am – at least to myself – an easily-pleased person when it comes to sleeping or living arrangement, given my hard past life and near-hopelessness of anything good to come of it.)

I burst into a low-toned song just after we had been more-or-less settled, feeling joyful, secure and contented for the first time in two weeks. I grabbed a blanket from the pile which one of the house elves had just delivered then spread it out farthest from the centre of the clearing. There, my vision of the azure sky partially blocked by the leaves and branches, I lay down, my cloak discarded on the bushes to my right side but my knives, naked, lying at my either sides on the grass, poised against any attacker.

Then Ardila called to me from some distance away, her soft tone nearly inaudible in my ears.

My song was cut. I rose into a sitting position and turned to the caller, curious to what could Ardila wish from me with so many helping hands already. I tilted my head slightly, inquiring.

She also said nothing, merely smiling. She proffered me a canteen of water and rolled her eyes. I laughed, admitting my carelessness. (I am not an avid water-drinker, indeed, and often forget that I have not drunk anything for the course of many hours a day.) I nodded, thanking her, and unstoppered the large plastic bottle. An idea sprung into my mind upon tasting the water: I could provide fresh drinking water from the nearest spring or stream! It must taste better than this polluted water if I chose well.

Thinking of 'hunting', I came to think about gathering some treat as well… I was sure that there were many wild berries available in such vertile, pristine environment.

Reassured that the small man – I regret we do not know his name – was not looking at my direction, I pulled my wand out of its holster at my side then transvered a twig lying nearby into a simple wicker basket. In other times, I would gladly plait one from the abundant supply of grass blades and twigs in the area, but I was too lazy for that then. With a nod towards Hermione, who happened to look my way, I rose to my feet, waved my wand over my blanket – which folded itself up and flew back to the pile – then tread out of the clearing. Renna, Ariana's guide dog, bounded after me, her tail wagging with excitement. It appeared that she had somehow smelled my intention… Well, I could use her aid in locating the water.

I did follow her, without an ounce of hesitation.

She did not betray my trust.

In less than fifteen minutes, I found myself lounging on the bank of a small, clear-watered stream. The spot was perfect for me, with a great scenery of tall grasses and wild flowers on the opposite bank, a moderate shade over my head, a mossy patch of ground to sit comfortably upon, and the nonexistence of humanoid sounds within my ears. Renna sprawled in a lazy pose by my side, but I believed she was highly alert to our surroundings – more than I, perhaps.

We were far from our temporary encampment, but not too far to come back quickly in case of danger on my side or my comrades'. The knowledge sent me into a peaceful reverie, and before long I had dozed off, the basket lying forgotten on my other side.

Not as long as I liked, unfortunately.

"Lone Wanderer," Ardila greeted me, again, with a low chuckle. I straightened up, scowling darkly, unhappy of being awakened from a restful dreamless slumber.

"What?" I questioned her in a tone within the borderline of harshness. She lifted up an eyebrow but otherwise did not comment on the tone.

"Don't you notice the light?" she said instead. My eyes snapped icily – probably moodily too – at her, but I did raise my gaze to the heavens,

And noted that it had become much darker since I had arrived earlier.

The darkness of evening.

The scowl was washed away from my face. My eyes returned to Ardila, reflecting a somewhat-sheepish apology.

She smiled teasingly, grey orbs sparkling, but otherwise said nothing. There was an underlying restlessness underneath her cheery countenance which tugged at my interest.

"We are only about an hour's ride from the Grey Havens," she informed me on my questioning gaze. "I will try to contact Ron when we're back to the camp. Some voted to go on regardless of the result, but I – and the rest of us – voted otherwise. Now I need your opinion…" In the end, she looked fairly agitated, her stance shifting constantly and her fingers fidgeting at her sides.

I hated this gesture of uncertainty and lack of confidence from her. She was one of the oldest of us, not only by age measurement, I reasoned, so she needed to be a good picture of leadership. I had heard from many sources how she and her siblings had brought comfort upon the small rebellion group against he-who-must-not-be-named. Afterwards, in this bizarre adventure, I had seen and felt the comfort for myself and judged it through my own perception.

Thus, to see her falter like this, it was as if she had betrayed my trust on her and broken a promise to me, an unspoken one which had made me cope up most pleasantly so far. It was a childish thought, I knew even then, but I reasoned to myself that she should realise by then about her role of protector in my new life. This was the first time I felt truly at home, safe and secure despite everything, and I was not about to lose it; not without my greatest effort. (A rather selfish and egoistic thought, no?)

She seemed to notice whatever leaked thoughts or emotions displayed on my features, for she froze and looked at me with alarm. `Here is my chance,` I said to myself.

I rose up slowly, noticing absent-mindedly that Renna and the basket were not at my sides anymore, and regarded the other girl with a hard, cool gaze so many had quailed under.

But she did not even show that she was perturbed by the infamous glare (which has earned me the nickname Bluefrost during my first year in Hogwards). She was concerned, yes, but for another subject entirely, not with how to melt my ice. That was what I liked from her – until now, among other traits she possesses.

"We can't just go gallivanting into a foreign territory," I affirmed in my most solid tone. She looked visibly relaxed. Her grateful grin was more than words could say at the moment.

"Seven against six, then," she laughed in relief. "Close enough, but our side wins by any means." The sparkles returned to those steel-coloured pools full force, and the confidence likewise. I smirked alongside her.

Renna came back then, Ariana ambling along beside her, one hand on the dog's colar. Ardila padded over to her twin and took a basket – my transfigured one, it seemed – from her while informing her about the last result of the voting. "Ginny won't like it," Ariana muttered, her countenance sour. I snorted, irritated. Hot-headness would do nothing except to bring harm in situations like this. Ginevra should know it well, given the one year she and some other students had spent hunting down the death eaters and whatever secret weapons besides.

Ardila frowned at me but did not comment. I returned to the camp while the twins proceeded with gathering berries and nuts for our meal. I did not wish to intrude upon their privacy, as much as I hoped that now I was considered their family.

The first thing I noticed upon stepping out of the foliage was Ginevra glaring at me as if knowing of my role in the final decision. My heart sank; not because of fear for myself, but for the crack in the otherwise – more-or-less – solid company. Trying to ignore her, I strode to the pile of blankets and took one from it, intending to continue my nap on the spot I had picked up in the afternoon. My easy mood had been wiped off clean.

During dinner, which went on under a tense atmosphere, Ginevra tried to contact her brother, but it was in futile. Hermione, his girlfriend, who continued the effort after the red-haired girl broke down and retreated to the branch of a tree a little farther from the perimeter of the camp, encountered no progress. The tension upon our heads was suffocating, reeking of doubt and dread of the unknown.

It became too much to me in a matter of minutes. Fighting an urge to flee to the stream, I took a sheet of parchment, quill and ink bottle from my pack then lay on my stomach on the blanket. I bet with myself, believing that I could produce a song, dreary though it must be. (Sometimes singing becomes a channel to vent out my emotions, but it is often not enough or simply impossible to dcarry out. There comes my other hobby: writing poems and lyrics.)

When I finished a poem (I won over the doubtful side of my mind), I looked up and around the camp. Ginevra was still absent, and Hermione too, but the others were gathered around the fire, talking or doing things to pass the time until they felt sleepy. The silhouettes of Ardila and Ariana hovered just outside the range of light, glued one to another, seeming to be in a deep, anxious conversation.

Finishing a second, longer poem of similar mood – grim – but different subject, I looked up again. Despite the knowledge of what time it was, I was surprised that many of my companions were already asleep, lying sprawled haphazardly on and under the blankets around the camp. There were only two people left, keeping vigil around the rumbling and spluttering fire: Ardila and Ariana. The stars were shining brightly overhead, and there was no sign of clouds in the bejeweled sky. The sounds of the sea were particularly sharp to my ears as if it were just behind a thicket of trees somewhere around the camp. It was calling me, promising freedom, like every other time I had heard it before, but this time the calling was more defined and clear, like someone calling with actual words. I was not as affected as Ardila, albeit, upon closer inspection.

"Any news?" I asked quietly when my feet brought me near enough to them. Ariana shook her head. Beside her, Ardila was hunched over her two-way mirror, seeming distraught.

"You hear the sea calling you," I said to Ardila. It was a statement, not a question, as I perceived that said girl was distraught over more than one thing; more than only Ronald's fate.

"Everything here is strange," again, it was Ariana who remarked. "The earth is most alive. The water is just as well," she elaborated briefly upon my questioning hum.

My stomach clenched. I was suddenly gripped by paranoia of monsters springing from the water, ground or trees, like I had been in my childhood. Ariana's statement, confirming my vague belief that at least a feature of the environment was more vibrant than that in our home world, blocked my only escape route from the reality. I could not simply flick her opinion away after the incident yesterday. Many did not believe the surreal – and more than a little unsettling – recounts of the twins traipsing around the continent in spirit forms, but I did.

I took a seat on Ardila's other side and touched the edge of the mirror in her right hand lightly with a fingertip. I drew the finger shortly afterwards with a surprised hiss, though. Ardila nearly threw away the mirror for the same reason. The mirror warmed! Someone was contacting Ardila!

And the image of a certain red-haired, freckled-faced and long-nosed boy appeared on the smooth surface of the metal work, framed by darkness.

No. Not a shapeless darkness. When I squinted, I could make out… a row of rocks there. `Why is he surrounded by rocks? Has he been stranded in a rocky island? How did he get there?` I wondered. For Merlin's sake! Those stone teeth indeed looked so menacing and sharp.

And he did not look well; not at all. Moreover, he appeared to be indignant and desperate.

With what, though? With his surroundings? Somehow I did not feel that it was the answer to this question.

Ardila opened her mouth to greet him. Ronald beat her to it, though; not with a greeting but a desperate plea. "Quick, Dil, bring me out of here. Those pointy-ears jailed me without a reason! Now I'm stuck between these blasted rocks and the sea; I had no choice when I went here, anyway. It's this or return to my cell."

Ardila's caution proved to be sound. If the Elf-kind here were hostile to Ronald without any reason, just as he claimed it to be, then they should not have any inhibition to treat us the same. We would have ended up like him or worse.

"Tell me everything," Ardila commanded. She was not really successful in hiding the quivering note in her voice.

And Ronald did. He recounted what had happened from the moment he had flopped down on the sand of the foreign beach until the moment he contacted her. With each part of the tale he told, my chest grew heavier and heavier.

How could we rescue him? We were at a disadvantage from all angles!

Time for action, probably, I said to myself, given the dangerous glint in Ardila's eyes. (She often reminds me of a lioness protecting her cubs, and some said she indeed is an illegal animagus in the form of a female lion.) I was just glad I was not at the receiving end of her wrath.

"We must act with caution," I spoke up when Ronald had ended the connection. In spite of my own eagerness, I forced myself to think as levelly as possible. (I have trained myself in this area for long; one of the reasons why I am still alive and sane.)

"We can send someone, but obviously not Ginny," Ariana piped in. "She is red-haired also, after all." Sadly, the joke was met by cold souls.

"Perhaps their enemy fear the heliopaths? If so, they have a reason to fear red-haireds," someone spoke up quietly, dreamily, some distance to Ariana's side. All three of us jolted with surprise.

"Luna?" a little dazed, Ardila asked. "What are you doing there? I thought you're asleep." She paused, her brow wrinkled, then continued with a small amount of pressure of urgency to the words, "Please don't say things like that when Ginny and Hermione are around. You're just like comparing Ron to the heliopaths in that way."

I fought a bout of snickering from bubbling up my throat. (Well, my hair is red also, but no one have ever related the colour to my mood.)

I was skeptical about my own chance of getting any sleep after the disconcerting report from the stranded Ronald, but I actually did get some, and a deep one at that. In the morning, I woke up refreshed and infigorated as if on the beginning of an exciting day.

Well, yeah, exciting… morbidly so, at least before we knew what danger we were riding into.

We resumed riding, but now in a poised manner, after a hasty breakfast of nuts, berries and buttered bread. My camera was tucked securely in my pack. I had no desire whatsoever to use it while we were so near from a – highly – possible danger. My heart thumped in my chest, eager for an action. Before I had even taken a firm seat in Finka's saddle, I had already felt the adrenaline coursing faintly through my veins. Odd, I thought. I had never been so… adventurous before this, before we were dunked into this new, unnervingly-alive, world.

I could not enjoy the caress of the breeze on my head also, unlike in our last trip. We had been instructed to put on our hoods and tie our hair each in a ponytail. Given our uniform hooded cloaks – despite the slightly-different colours – and the long-haired females' uniform hairstyle, we looked like a cavalry troop marching to war indeed.

I inhaled a deep intake of breath, as if about to dive into a swimming pool or a lake, when Ardila tuned a low, short whistling sound with her lips. The horses trotted then cantered after the implied command. Never had I felt the movement of a horse as acutely as what I was experiencing then.

Once again, I brought up the rear together with Patricia – who was now in charge of the small man. Before us, Draco and the elven twins from Alagaësia rode with varying postures. Young Vorin, Ginevra and Luna rode before them, and I can just barely make out the forms of Hermione, Susan and Padma afterwards. That means my sight did not provide me with even a glimpse of Ardila and Ariana, our leaders… Not a pleasant situation, to me.

I felt vulnerable. Not that I would ever confess to anyone about it, though.

The feeling of vulnerability stemmed not from my lack of skill, but deeper.

Many people, including my family, considered me icy and unapproachable. (I intend to leave it at that, since it guarantees me an escape route from many possible problems.) I just never permitted anyone to discern so easily that I was just a normal girl who revelled in being protected and cared for, actually.

Since we had departed just when dawn was breaking, the day was yet young at the time we encountered an obstacle. A pair of guards – Elves, judged from their pointed ears – halted us with cries that unmistakably mean: "Halte! You are approaching the Grey Havens! What purpose brings you here?" Bleh. Challenge is just the same everywhere.

It seems that our leaders perceived in like manner, for Ardila then held up her hands, palms outward, in a universal sign of peace. By then I had left my former position, slipping to a spot just behind the twins' horses. From my new position, I had a clear view of what was going on and was able to assist should the situation go awry… or so I thought.

One of the centinels took up his horn and blew a series of notes, which was answered from far ahead only seconds later. We tensed. We did not know what the signals meant. We did not wish to be identified as enemies or disposable tresspassers, because it would mean a bloody struggle for us. Against such unearthly creatures – if the centinels possessed skills and traits like our own elven members –, we had little to no chance of winning at all, I presumed. Even should we win, our loss would be heavy and I supposed it could make the strongest of us baulk from the idea of a battle; not mentioning that, if we used magic in the fight, the survivors of the skirmish would be entitled dark magicions.

Thankfully, we found out that the call only meant a demand for assistance from other centinels to drive us to… wherever they meant us to go. I frowned with displeasure but kept my bearing erect and regal. Unbelievably it had been my father who had taught me the trick years ago in my first lesson of horse-riding. He must only intend the lesson to reduce my chance of shaming him in front of his friends and acquaintances, but now it served me well, for my own purpose and benefit. I was happy, for somehow in that way I had spat on his obscured intention.

I trotted between Ariana and Ardila. I did not look back, but from the sound of it, the formation behind us had also been changed. Four people rode behind us instead of three, and four others in the rear of the procession, leaving two sandwiched between the lines. If my assumption was correct, either of our twin leaders had commanded it that way mind to mind. I appreciated this new, defensive formation. It brought a sense of protection and safety to everyone in the group.

The farther we distanced ourselves from the road, the stronger the sea called. The environment reflected it also. The lush, green grass was reduced to hard, brown soil, then it too gave up to soft creamy sand. My heart leapt when Finka's front hoofs sank into a layer of the tiny particles, creating a muffled crunching sound. We were nearing a beach! The calls of gulls and the rumbles of waves filled the salty air. A blueish line glimmered on the horizon…

"Ardila?" I murmured. A rustling sound seeped into my right ear. When I turned to the source of the faint noise, said girl was staring with a hungry look at the same tantelising ribbon of colour to the northwest.

Ronald's rescue was forgotten.

The mission returned to our minds, though, when the guards motioned for us to surrender our steeds to some Elves that had been waiting near the stables. None of our company moved. All eyes turned to Ardila, who by now had planted a disapproving frown on her face. I snorted inwardly but then sighed. She had better decide an action with foremost wisdom now that the mission was on the way, I prayed.

I watched her leap down from her saddle. But she kept the reins in her hands. Ariana imitated her. I dithered for a split second, but then did the same. Behind us, the action was repeated by eleven people.

Through gestures, Ardila conveyed her decision: that the horses were to be stabled, but by our own hands. The captain of the guard – I thought – looked offended, yet Ardila persisted… and finally she prevailed. With an inaudible exhale of relief, I trailed after her and Ariana to the stables, leading Finka with a hand on her neck rather than the reins.

The next problem presented itself afterwards: How to rescue Ronald? Was he still among the rocks? How to get out without the horses? But, after thinking it over, I believed Ardila did not wish to leave her beloved Meeps under the mercy of the Elves…

A rather large group of Elves escorted us to a beautiful building – like a simple castle – before which a bearded Elf had been waiting. He bowed to us. Ardila returned the bow stiffly, and then we were ushered inside to an audience chamber. I and my comrades grew more and more restless every step we took, and the feeling did not abate when we were at last seated in the spacious room. Ginevra, a seat behind me, communicated with her brother through her two-way mirror with muffled voices. The slight noise distracted me, to my annoyance, yet I could not blame her fully for this, as much as I wanted to do so.

It was hard for both parties to communicate wishes and demands with mere body language and facial expressions. The meeting was tideous at best and downright frustrating at worst. Somewhere in the middle of it, desperate, Ardila produced her drawing kit from her pack and began to sketch Ronald's face.

I wished she had done it sooner.

The look in the bearded Elf's face was priceless. But not everyone among our company thought that his dumbstruck, guilt-stricken expression was funny or even laughable. Ginevra and Hermione stared contemptuously at him upon discerning the implied message.

We were shown to chambers in the other wing of the building. Apparently, the bearded Elf, the lord of this place, lived in the same wing and now considered us his guests. It did not dous the mutinous mood of Ginevra and Hermione. It seemed to calm many, with varying degrees, albeit. I chose a room directly beside Ardila's. After dumping my pack on the desk there, I followed her and her twin out of the building. Ardila had changed her traveling attire to an odd kind of tight suit which I had often seen worn by muggles when going surfing. She brought a strange contraption within a thin but wide and long synthetic-skin bag with her, but I also saw that she had not forgotten her twin hunting knives.

"Where are you going?" I asked her when the three of us had exitted the building.

"Like you don't know…" Ariana chuckled. Renna barked firmly in agreement with her mistress. I Laughed.

Ardila snorted noncommittally.

From the way Ardila chose her clothing and what item she was bearing on her back, I believed she planned to head to the sandy beach we had encountered firstly in our trip to the palace-like building.

Fate spoke differently, though. The bearded Elf intercepted us and motioned to… a shipyard! I was so estatic that I forgot to mask my emotions. I had always wished to visit one my whole life, and here I was, in a traditional shipyard no less!

Judging from the rounded eyes of our grey-eyed leader and the excitement which she could barely suppress, I was surprised that she maintained her caution and distance from our host.

Well, anyway, we ended up tugging after her around the shipyard. Ariana strolled with boredom, Renna guiding her, while I inspected the ship-in-buildings with a large amount of interest albeit lazily. We hung back when Ardila volunteered to work for a while with a medium-sized half-ready sailing boat, but we were the first to show fascination when our host brought us to the docks.

Music is a universal language, I agree, yet back then I found out that actually any hobbies or other interests could serve the same purpose. Within the span of two hours, Ardila had learnt snippets of the Elves' language, particularly about ships and sailing, and she had even gained some secret admirers for her knowledge, skill and quickness in learning the language spoken here. Neither I nor Ariana was as lucky.

We continued our way to the sandy beach as planned after lunch – on the deck of a brand-new sailboat – with our host, who calls himself Keer-dan… or something along the line. Nearing sunset, our number reduced to two. Ardila was happily dancing atop the crest of the waves while I and Ariana were watching from the tide line, our feet tickled by the salty water which occasionally reached far into the land like groping fingers.

This was the end I never expected. I had indeed read heroic stories and fairytales too much in my spare time…

But it was a good end to a full day, and for that I cherish it. That day, we gained our first allies and friends in this foreign land.


	9. Interlude 2: Eäreth

There is no word spoken between us. The sand is quite warm beneath my feet, residue of the midday's heat. The soft particles part easily on the back of my feet and toes, caressing my hungry skin. Daphne pads around not far away, while Ana has already been within the tidal line, creating letters on the wet sand with her feet – bare like the rest of us. I stare longingly at the rolling waves, glittering under the sun's rays, losing interest with my companions just after some seconds.

"Wha—" I protest. Someone is shoving me playfully towards the waves. I look down and find that my outer clothes have been stripped without me noticing at all. My heart flutters with unease within my chest.

"Go and play."

Spoken quietly like a breeze. Daphne.

A white surfing board waves before me, my own, blocking my vision. But still, I hesitate.

Someone sweeps my lower legs from under me. I fall forward with a surprised scream, landing on the tidal line on my surfboard. My ranting is welcomed by two sets of laughter.

I fume, and there is only one remedy for it if I do not want to return sting with sting. Petulantly, I stomp my feet on the way to the water line.

Chplack!

I pretend I step on Daphne's fair foot.

Chplack!

Ana would willingly run, just to pursue me to seek revenge, if I stepped on her toes…

Chplack!

Perhaps then I could drag them to play with me among the waves far from the beach.

Chplack!

Hmm. Good Idea. I never thought of it before. But I do not want to come back for them while they are still laughing at my expense…

Chplack!

Perhaps next time. Now is just for—

Chplash! Blurpg.

Wet. Cool. Water.

I freeze.

I look down and gape at the place I have just stomped over. The sand there is covered by a newly-breaking wave.

My heart sings. My pretense slips down as easily as water through passive hands. I run forward in abandon, laughing like a little girl.

A big wave is rolling towards me. I grin. It is big enough to knock me over, but I already have a plan to best it.

I stumble on the current that always preceeds every sea-wave. It is near enough now, a monster which towers onto my shoulders.

But I am not afraid. Water is only one of my elements, but it is the one that I love, the one that best describes my soul.

The wave is upon me. I jump with all my might, my surfboard tucked under my right arm.

I land, splashing bits of water, on my surfboard on the crest of the wave. I stand up, grinning cheekily to a spot far over the sea, feeling like a child playing with her father… Or am I? My eyes has just spotted someone standing far away there on the west…

How if that—

I plonk into the water, which is surprisingly cool. I am being dragged underneath the water by a downward current. I curse colourfully while struggling to get my head above the water. I need – and love – fresh air!

Laughter rings in my ears, a male-sounding one. The surfboard bumps against my temple once then knocks me on the other side. I manage a growl with mouth, nose and eyes tightly sealed.

But why can I hear laughter here, under the water? As far as I remember too, I was not far from the ankle-deep water line when I jumped…

I kick at the water forcefully for the last time and surface, coughing and spluttering. The waves around me are too big and frequent to see through, although I have tried to employ every trick I know. Grudgingly, I climb onto my surfboard and sit astride it like one on a horse.

The wind stings me with chill. My teeth chatter. Hmm. Perhaps this is my punishment for being so cocky…

But whatever. Now I have some hours for myself with these beautiful, perfect waves… in an environment that seems more alive than asleep or even lifeless.

Eh? Alive?

"Silly thought," I mutter, but the idea from earlier in the journey to this place has already crept back into my mind.

The next wave is coming barreling to me. I have no other choice but to stand regal – hopefully – and firm upon my 'steed' and welcome it.

An excited, rather childish grin is plastered on my face. I can store away any philosophical ideas for later. Now I only have to have fun.

************************************************************************

The waves rolled endlessly under my surfboard as if they were dancing to a particularly-jolly rhythm. Fitting myself to the tempo, I fell into the same dance. I laughed in delight at the occasional fingers that tossed me high to the air only to set me down again atop the next glittering crest.

Being in the sea and knowing that land was not far had given me a sense of security and peace. Such feelings had been hard to come by during the journey here, in the time I and my company had spent before the Grey Havens. Moreover, my carefree existence here had refreshed me, cleansing the dark thoughts cluttering my mind. This was the reprieve I had longed ever since we had been dumped in this strange, foreign land. I had never known that keeping twelve heads secure and happy while planning to retrieve the missing three others could be so hard here…

The dark points of the journey seeped back into my head. I scowled, but there was a remedy for it already.

And in the most bizarre way too.

A young man appeared seemingly from nowhere, trying to imitate me. He was hobbling on a piece of rotten wooden board; a piece of driftwood, it seemed.

I laughed, although my conscience scolded me fiercely for it. Somehow my heart knew that he was only joking with that pathetic board, albeit he was maybe serious in communicating that he was unskilled in surfing and wanted to try.

He laughed too, a roguish sort of laughter which informed me of his hard personality and that he considered me an equal, not a mere girl to flirt with. I liked him at once.

_`Teach me the play_,` he pleaded, his inner voice the strong, rolling rumbles of a tumultuous ocean. I returned his challenging grin and sped away, enticing him to follow me. Teaching with practice was sometimes the best way, I argued to myself, countering my guilt of presenting him with so hard a challenge.

He scrambled after me and cursed using several odd names that I did not know.

When he did curse in sentences intelligible to me, I was caught between choking and laughing hard.

Spurred by his imprications, I teased him with subtle gestures and danced away, faster this time.

He fell for it.

But this time his tenacity in imitating me had the desired result, and the effort was not accompanied by a steady stream of curses.

He wooped like a little boy when he managed to stay on his rotten-wood surfboard thrice in a row. He grinned goofily, his stormy grey-blue eyes alight with glee. I wooped too, celebrating his accomplishment sincerely, and bestowed him the same silly grin. We surfed side by side, competing with each other in a playful air.

I found a friend in him, a fellow wild but deceptively calm soul, untamed by space or time – such as the nature of water. I found in him what I did not find even in my twin…

On the thought of Ana, I baulked and deflated. It was such a crime, to me, that I found discontentment in a faithful life-long companion that was my sister.

_`No one can be content with only one companion_,` he commented. I could not deny the truth in his statement, but he had annoyingly startled me – plus, I had entirely forgotten his presence in my musing. I shunned him out of my mind and put a physical distance between us in reflex.

I did not expect the ensuing result at all.

The friendly sea raged at once. The wild waves tossed me about like a rag doll, knocking me off my surfboard.

Storm waves.

I froze, my mind numb. I was trapped amidst a sudden tempest – or so I thought.

I had no power over the tumultuous water. I was completely helpless.

_Tumoltuous… Yes, tumultuous, like his voice, my first 'water' friend._

My chest constricted. My mind sought him out, groping and grabbing blindly for an entity I recognised in this crazy setting. If this should be my end, I thought, then at least I should have been reconciled with him by the time I was gone.

Even if he was the one who had concocted this evil…

_`Hey sulky one! Come and hug me if you dare!` _I shouted in the peak of my frustration. Like a wild animal, my anger rose when I was cornered. In my jumbled state of mind – and in my ears too – the words sounded fine, and I did not particularly care about who heard the shout.

A pair of hesitant but strong arms encircled me around my middle. I yelped in surprise and horror. The person anchored my helplessly-tossing body, though, somehow. I was grateful for it despite everything, for my head had gone dizzy and nausea cherned my insides.

_`Did you not summon me?` _the same young man asked when I wiggled free. His voice seemed to come from the roiling sea around us. My body went rigid. The voice had been so familiar in such a short time. We stayed in that pose for who knew how long; he hugged me around my middle from behind and I in turn hugged my surfboard as if a lifeline.

Then,

_`I am sorry.`_

Two voices mingled into one. I whirled around abruptly in my surprised astonishment, my surfboard clutched in one hand at one edge. I had expected him to wait for my apology, deeming that it was his nature and right to be arrogant. Smiling in embarrassment and humility, I returned his embrace warmly like to an old friend.

_`I am sorry.`_

We chorused again and then chortled at the absurdity of it all. The tempest had been gone once I ceased to pay attention at my surroundings, and now we were floating lazily, rocked by gentle waves with sunlight warming our upper bodies.

_`What is your name?` _I asked after a while. The bboy was swimming around me in a tight circle. His head was always above the water and turned to me as if fearing that I would vanish at any moment.

He stopped paddling before me and snagged an arm around my neck. Now, given the casual intimacy, I felt like having a long-lost brother back in my arms – to my slight unease.

_`The Falathrim Elves who reside there call me Ossë_,` he said solemnly, his free hand pointing at the direction where I knew the Grey Havens lay. `_But do not tell them you met me here, and played with me no less. They would either deem it as a slander or consider you a mad person.` _His eyes were wide and earnest, itching me to counteract.

_`Why? A slander to whom? To them?`_

He looked away. My free hand shot out and cupped his chin, steering his face gently back to me so that I could see him – and probably read his expression.

My eyebrows climbed up my brow. He was blushing! His complexion reddened further, almost comically, upon discerning my facial comment regarding the hue on his defined visage.

_Who are you to them, Ossë?` _I asked him as seriously as possible, trying to avoid wounding him in his current sensitivity.

_`Cranky_,` he mumbled. `_Loveable, they say, but untrustworthy. Wild, unruly, more-than-half-way from evil—`_

_`Ossë?`_

_`Yes?`_

_`I asked you who you are to them, not what their opinion of you. I can form my own opinion of you, you know, without knowing what theirs is.`_

I smiled, trying to encourage him, trying to bring back his carefree, roguish confidence.

It did not work. He did not respond, and was just as gloomy. I became rather desperate now.

_`Ossë?`_

_`Yes?`_

_`Race me!`_

And so he did. We turned a lazy surfing upon the crests of the waves into an odd race, one that I had never thought possible. I did not care if it was weird, though, for it brought back the friend I knew: the cranky, loveable Ossë, the roguishly-confident one.

And faintly I heard someone, a male voice, chuckle. I looked briefly to the west and there, perching atop the waves, stood a shadowy figure who stared straight at us. `_Be merry, children_,` he bade us in a warm, playful tone. I grinned, identical to Ossë's reaction. Warmth from the new voice bathed me. The voice, albeit different in character, reminded me strongly of the adoptive father I had lost in ensuring my safety just some months prior.

************************************************************************

Female peals of laughter drifted ashore, carried by the wet wind. Elves were distracted from their works, their eyes flickering every so often to the expanse of water beyond the docks and ships. There, just some ways away from the horizon, a figure clad in tight-fitting light blue raiment was dancing upon the waves. If one squinted and looked hard, aided by Elven eyesight, one would find that her stance was supported by a white teardrop-shaped board. From passing inspection, however, she looked as though riding on the waves unaided. It was such a wonder to them. They knew that such thing was possible; but Ossë's laughter was just a legend among them… and rarely meant good.

Now, with the dancing apparition enjoying its waves, the sea seemed to rejoice – in the proper way – and even the sun seemed brighter.

The laughter never ceased, and the apparition never stopped dancing either. Once, she twirled on the board then stood on her hands. Then, as if on a stage on a firm land, she would flip back on her feet while waiting for another wave to ride, only to go back on her hands and pivoted on them when chance presented itself. Often, she would just wave her arms and bend slightly then spring like a playful dancer, and that was when a heavier, male laughter would join the ceaseless female one.

"Is that Ossë laughing?" they whispered to each other every time the male voice let itself be heard. No one had an answer to that, but their doubts made them wary nevertheless, for Ossë had been brooding for several weeks by then.

At last, when anor dipped behind the skyline, the apparition halted her show. Some grumbled and protested, desiring more, while the others thought that one was enough. All of them, though, stopped short of their comments or resumed works when she came nearer to them, near enough for them to feel her gaze upon them and sense her smile to them. A part of the throng, heavy with superstition, fled the coastline in as dignified a manner as possible, while the rest returned her greetings.

Just before the last rays abandoned the earth, they saw her spread her arms in a gay gesture of farewell and stand still on the crest of a particularly-big wave.

She vanished alongside the last light. Those who watched felt strangely bereft.

It was not the last time they saw her in the span of time the Men called a day, though, unlike whatt they believed.

The sandy beach on the edge of Mithlond was still occupied. The third member of the small company of the Elves' new guests had returned, but she was not what they had seen earlier in the afternoon after she and her friends had visited the shipyard and docking ships. She was clad like the apparition far out in the sea.

The two other maidens were dragging an odd roughly-rectangular 'chubby' boat to the water. The newly-arrived one skirted them and the boat, probably to help with the other end of it,

And that was when the Elves saw what was strapped to her back.

It was the white teardrop-shaped board they had seen earlier.

They laughed and shook their heads, feeling like silly adolescents. The one who had absorbed their attention was actually nearer than what they had thought!

"We should call her Eäreth, Sea Maiden," one proposed to a friend beside him.

"Nay. We should call her Eärlaleth, Laughing Sea Maiden," the other retorted. "She never ceased laughing, and the sea rejoiced with her."

"But it is too long of a name! It sounds a little weird too. She might not like it," the first countered, bbut without scorn. "How if we shortened it a little? The meaning of the name could stay the same, but the name do not ought to be thus."

They agreed, and the name was shouted joyfully when next said maiden turned her head at their direction.

"Eäreth! Eäreth! Come and join us for a evening feast, would you?"

She laughed, emitting the same rippling laughter they had heard before far out in the sea. Her charcoal-grey orbs glittered with amusement. She pointed at them then shook her head a bit regretfully, signing that she was yet to learn their language more to understand the invitation. But the light in the steel-coloured pools promised them something: that she would not decline when next they asked her, after she had learnt their language sufficiently.

Then she vanished in the gloom of the water with her companions, riding on the small strange boat.


	10. Chapter 7: The Clouds Gathered Part 1

The sun had dipped low on the horizon. The reddish rays stung Ron's eyes. Still, he strained against the discomfort, squinting against the violent light.

There was a shape dancing endlessly upon the waves. He had known Dila to identify the figure as belonging to her. He did not need to hear the laughter rippling across to him to do that. In fact, the sound only annoyed him.

And like other annoyances when left too long, Ron's anger was roused. It was like a patch of skin made raw by endless scraping against an irritating object that refused to cease doing so.

As if guided by the retreating ball of fire, Dila slid across to him. But she was not alone.

_What now?` _Ron thought, irritated. `_She left me in this forsaken place and flirted with a stranger?`_

He could not think well. His brain felt like a pool of mud, a mire sucking every thought before it could have a chance of surfacing. Fever had gripped him since early in the afternoon. If Dila left him longer, he would be twenty-four hours sitting there, shivvering and in a building daze, by night.

Trying to ignore the rock scraping the skin of his bottom through his breeches, he shifted and hugged himself tighter, cursing Dila profusely in his delirium. Were his mother there, she would shriek with shock and offence upon hearing the inventive provanities he was jibbering. Were his father there, he would scold Ron directly for the usage and bid the latter to stop. Billy would smirk. Charlie would laugh outright. Percey would sniff haughtily in that prim way of his. The twins would cackle and tease if "ickle Ronny-kins" was irked by a failed attempt of wooing a girl. And Ginny would…

A single teardrop bladed down Ron's stone-ice-cold cheek, hot and sharp against the stiff skin, matching the heat emanating from inside his body.

Dila, ten meters from him, did not notice the liquid beed glittering like liquid fire gemstone, touched by a finger of light from the departing sun.

She was contemplating her new friend, who had been dear to her heart in such a short time – in her reckoning. She was no longer upon her surfboard but paddling lazily with her arms around it. Ossë, as was his wont, swam around her with his two bright eyes fixed on her unwaveringly. In the lack of light, those orbs looked as if two miniscule round windows overlooking a stormy sky lit by lightning; a rather disconcerting view to behold for most people, put into humanoid eyes like this.

Dila was unnerved herself, but for a different reason. She was not known to be one who made friend easily, despite her confident, easy bearing. She had many acquaintances, yes, but only a handful of friends or two.

_Something bothering?` _Ossë's voice broke her musing. Startled, Dila gasped and lost her grip on the surfboard. She submerged into the warm water for a moment, sucked by the hungry downward current.

_No. Not really_,` she answered after she had been safely attached to her surfboard again, while her physical mouth was busy coughing up salty water from her stomach and spluttering the tiny bits which had made their way to her lungs. A series of sneezes did the job for her piteous body seconds later.

_Not entirely a truth_,` Ossë accused. He halted before her, much like what he had done in the afternoon, and fixed her with a hard, searching gaze.

_Promise me first that you won't be angry if I tell you_,` Dila, making an effort to appear brave and dignified amidst her sneezes and running nose, requested. Ossë pouted sourly but nodded, his stare becoming petulant.

_I rarely make friend the easy way.`_

_And you rue it now?`_

_No. I just… feel weird; that's all.`_

_You let your mind guide you too much.`_

_No.`_

_Do I?` _Dila questioned herself in spite of her denial. The content of her abdomen did a restless series of flips, and she fought with the muscles of her face in order for them not to work into a grimace of – high – discomfort. She had forgotten that she had not eaten the whole day, and now her stomach fell into a squeezing cramp as an effect to the wild churning and fluttering done by its neighbours. She could not think, and partially she would not either. She did not want to waste the last moments of their company for an introspection or a pondering of philosophical matters.

_I don't know, Ossë_,` she said softly at length during the silent in their mental link. She saw now that the boy's eyes opposite her brightened with delight, pleasure and pride in the moment she spoke his name, as though his inconsequencial name had been made sweet and important by her.

But why?

_I'm sorry, Ossë.`_

Again, those orbs, already brimming with light, brightened to a fierce intensity. But this time the additional 'illumination' dimmed faster.

_For what?` _The boy was perplexed. Scratching his head in bafflement, he looked quite like a mere adolescent, betraying the power one could sense rather easily in him – like powerful waves or furious whirlpools –, or the age hidden underneath his casual, carefree, undignified outlook.

_`For being cocky and assumptive;__ for looking down upon you that first time I met you… You have sensed all, haven't you?`_ Unable to lock gazes with him, Dila stared with shame burning on her face at the glistening surface of her surfing board dimmed by a coat of transparent rubber. Some of her snot had landed there, smudging the smoothly-sloping surface. She brushed the spots away with seawater so that she had something to occupy herself, to hide from the shame.

She had expected him to snort dismissively or derisively like her younger siblings or any of her friends, or tilt her chin up in search of her eyes like her parents or older brother. But he did neither of them.

A warm body pressed itself against her back exposed to the bite of the buffetting cold wind from the west. A pair of strong, supple arms wound their way around her neck and clasp themselves to each other under her chin. A head rested on the left side of her head, snuggling to the small nook on the crook of her neck. A voice like rumbling waves hummed with contentment into her left ear when the effort proved a success.

Warmth which had nothing to do with the heat of another body's closeness to her spread from her chest to her head and down to her body and limbs, resting at last on the tips of her fingers and toes in pleasant tingles.

_He doesn't care_,` she whispered in awe to herself within the walls of her mind. `_He doesn't care. He does not_.` The sensation was new to her. Such blind love and care felt alien when applied to someone older than an infant or toddler, in her opinion. She had never encountered an instance like this before, and she was shocked into dumb silence with the bliss it offered. It was like ddrinking cool, soothing water while taking a soft-but-fresh-scented bath to a traveller nearly dying from thirst in the desert.

Such simple touch… Such simple love…

Until now, she had dismissed the burden in her mind and heart as something trifial. That was why she had managed a smile – albeit an irked one – when some in her company had protested about sore and aching muscles after half-a-day ride on horseback in a blistering afternoon the remnence of the previous summer. She had reminded herself that she and her siblings had been accustomed to riding long distances in the countryside with their parents and older brother… She had broken Hermione's arguments with other people with automated words and movements. She had only glowered at Draco for his incessant protests about almost everything. She had replied to Ana's chattering in her mind dutifully even while she had wished for silence and contemplation…

And she wondered why she had not broken now, when all the memories flooded back to her with a force that made her reel physically – alarming Ossë in the process.

His simple bliss shattered, the boy grumbled, `_What now?`_

But his grip on her was relentless, as though nothing had happened.

_Nothing related to you_,` Dila answered quickly. He snorted distrustfully.

_Well, to summary the long story_,` She gritted her teeth, `_I'm quite happy that you are here and close to me.`_

She had said the words without thinking, only to soothe the brewing storm in her cranky friend – perhaps literally –, but that confession, unintentionally honest and forthright, was like a whip to herself. She was seldom so open in stating her own feelings or emotions, and now she did it, to a friend she had made in less than a day.

Ossë did not perceive the thoughts… or probably he chose not to. He grinned; the tightening of the muscles on his face, which made his skin shifted against hers, informed her that he was beaming widely.

Without knowing why, Dila hated his unrestrained emotions. Her mind formed a way to thwart his happiness, to wipe the silly grin from his beautifully-feral complexion, before she realised what she was doing.

Then, when she was finally aware of it, shame and guilt clawed at her conscience. `_Have I fallen so low? Why?`_

To distract herself, she focused her attention at their bodies and surroundings, as she had done countless times before to calm herself down.

The waves were lapping at their upper bodies gently, nudging them at the direction of the wall of rocks jutting from the depths as if cloven. The chill and tugging sensation underneath and around her feet informed her that they were hovering above a deep cleft thrust far into the seabed. She had to tread the water unceasingly in order not to be dragged down by the undercurrent, yet there was no movement detected from Ossë's. He was effortlessly buoyant, confident in his powers of bending the water to his will.

Dila was tempted to employ her own – meagre – power so that she could stay her wheeling legs for a while, but Ossë's presence hindered the wish.

She was afraid that Ossë would forsake her company if he knew she was not a mere human, a mere girl.

Thinking of it once more, she realised that almost every gestures, movements and words from Ossë aimed at her screamed the same fear.

She smirked wrily.

_We are not so different, after all… despite everything.`_

_Yes, despite the wide distance of age and power_,` a small voice chirruped to her, a part which often annoyed her. Silencing the chirping, she focused her thoughts in listing the tasks she should do once she was back to the land.

And that was when she remembered Ron in full.

Sucking her breath, she tore herself from Ossë and swam away, looking around wildly. She strained her mortal eyes, her outer ones, against the near-darkness.

_What is wrong?` _surprised, Ossë urged. He swam to her side and held her right hand tightly. She was shaking, and tremors racked the hand under his cool grasp.

_I forgot my friend_,` she confessed in a self-loathing tone. `_He was here. He should be here. It has been a day full!`_

_Calm down…`_ Ossë was restless, unaccustomed to her frantic mode. Dila chuckled to herself to the irony. The easily-stirred Ossë asked her to calm down?

_I can sense someone on the foremost rock formation over there_.` He tried to help, guiding Dila's inner eyes to said place. The girl cringed visibly – as if stabbed or struck – upon finding where Ron had been perched, shivering, curled in an upright fetal position.

_My fault_,` she moaned. `_What am I going to say to him and everyone else? What a leader I am!`_

_You can't put all blames on you_,` Ossë chid her softly, but she ignored him.

_I shall accompany you there_,` he offered. `_I covered myself from mortal eyes when we were playing earlier, but now I shall let him see me. Then you do not have to bear the blame alone, at least that which comes from him.`_

Dila uttered a sound torn between a gasp and a squeak. `_No_,` she pleaded. `_You don't know what his reaction would be. He would accuse me of flirting and the like…`_

_But I was not flirting with you!` _Ossë was indignant and appalled. His innocent confession sent Dila into a fit of nervous chuckles… which died down when they arrived before the rock bearing Ron's weight upon it.

And, true to her prediction, the red-haired boy was furious. But that was only after she had touched the back of his right foot and proclaimed that she was Dila.

Ron's skin felt like burning. His slowness in recognising her told her that fever had been gripping him for some time, that the heat she could feel a centimetre's distance away from his skin was caused by his body and not the lack of it in her fingers after some time dipped underwater.

_What will I say? Can he survive a fever this high without damage? Or will it be our friendship that is doomed to be damaged?`_

_Why should he hate you so?` _Ossë asked amidst the clamour of frantic thoughts in her mind. `_Look. His mouth is foaming. It is quite an appalling sight to behold. You did not forsake him, did you? You came, whereas you could have not done so.`_

His simple observation and understanding, whereas it would colour Dila's dull world in other times or situations, now gritted at her already-sore brain, irritating it further. She did not offer him any answer.

_I shall aid you in removing him from here_,` he persisted. Dila whirled around from her inspection of Ron and opened her mouth as if to chide him physically. But the words were never uttered, physically or mentally,and her jaw clicked shut. Ossë's eyes were burning fiercely, filled with a light which make them look even more unearthly in its radiance, and distrust – as well as deep suspicion – shone through them. She wondered why his words had been formed so simply and innocently while his expression – and most likely feelings – differed greatly from his ignorant-and-nonchalant-sounding statement.

_What is he thinking about? Does he distrust Ron or me? Why? I have been honest enough!`_

To cover her quivering unease – and truthfully, fear – she raised her voice over Ron's jibbering and told him that she would rescue him from the rock in a short while. She swam away quickly afterwards, but not before making sure that Ossë swam on the lead. As annoyed as she was with Ron, she would never let him be harm. Indeed, she would not even 'feed' Draco to Ossë's wrath; perhaps never, or at least not anytime soon.

_Sorry I'm late_,` Dila projected her words to Daphne and Ana, still frolicking idly on the beach, upon detecting their presences. `_Would you please bring the rubber boat there and a lantern or flashlight? And at least one blanket too. I have found Ron.`_ Her request was met with a flurry of thoughts and actions as the two other girls immediately did what she had told. Many in the company, the three girls included, had waited too long for that moment to come. But still, questions crackled and shot up like sparks from a roaring campfire from Daphne's and Ana's minds even as they were working, tumbling over each other in their haste of reaching Dila.

None of the inquiries was answered – not in the sence of the present. Dila was secretly glad that the sudden bustle had made her two friends occupied; she would not have escaped so easily otherwise.

She hovered some meters from the shallows, pretending to ignore Ossë who had once more taken up to swim around her. Upon her friends' arrival, she motioned for the boy to lurk somewhere while she herself swam to the beach, fighting against the current that dragged her instead to the open sea. She aided Daphne and Ana in pumping up the inflatable boat and setting it up accordingly, being used to maritime matters since her parents had brought her and Ana to a traditional pier, full of rustic fishermen, for the first time eight years ago.

Ossë came silently on the rear of the boat when it had been launched into the mercy of the seaward current. He was well-hidden from the rays of the halogen flashlight, yet Dila was still worried that her companions' sharp senses would detect his presence sooner or later…

Sooner, it seemed, for Daphne remarked that the sea was strangely calm; the waves were gentle, almost measured. She could sense power in it, she said, and actually nearby.

Dila recoiled slightly on her seat on the rear of the boat, on the arch-point of the engorged rubber belt. She ceased rowing for some seconds, trusting Ossë to guide them safely to the rock formation. Her mind reeled back as if struck by a merciless force.

Ana confirmed Daphne's assertation but with much less bravery in her voice. Laughter seeped into Dila's mind from Ossë. She perceived it as more an offence at her twin than merely a playful chuckle, though. Indignant, she ssealed him out, barricading herself from inside with water barriers. People said her defenses were unbreechable due to the sleek but strong and supple nature of water, and she wished to test them now after so long unchallenged – only four months, actually, but it seemed so long to her with all that had been transpiring.

She forgot that Ossë was much more powerful and knowledgeable than her in matters of water. He seeped back into her mind like liquid worming its way through a crack on its container and expressed his own indignance at her.

Dila was positively annoyed now. Ideas popped up in her innermost thoughts.

One stood out amidst the clutter.

Water, although It was not extinguished on the face of fire, despised the latter nonetheless for heating it up. It was a concept of nature, imbued by personal experience.

And now it was Dila's weapon, since her secondary element was fire, the one she was fond of almost as keenly as water.

She kicked Ossë out again and slammed the barriers shut, yet this time she layered a fiery wall outside her usual fortification. A grim smile fleeted across her face when – she knew – he attempted his slippery way again on her. A physical muffled yelp went up behind her. Unlike before, however, she did not wish to let him flee from her presence. Panicked, she quickly seized any part of him less it was too late and he was gone. Unfortunately for Ossë, her hand chanced upon the hair on his scalp.

Forsaking her paddle, Dila grappled with him, fighting to subdue him and to pull him aboard. Fear blossomed in her heart in place of indignation, born of intuition rather than argument; a horrifying feeling which told her that Ossë would not return to her anymore if she lost him now. Unwittingly, she had disclosed a part of herself to him, something that she had been avoiding.

Apparently, it was the part he despised and feared in equal measures, because he sat trembling as far away from her as possible once Dila had managed to haul his squirming lean form up, while ducking to avoid his flaling arms which struck her anyway, and perch him with just as much effort on her former post. The boat had pitched dangerously backwards, and now there was no use covering up his existence.

From the tense poses of her friends on the other end of the boat, Dila discerned that they were both frightened and morbidly curious about the unknown and unannounced stranger behind their backs. Were she them, she would have been in the same predicament. Alas, she had to deal with a problem less pleasant than that. By now, she had already been tired of 'taming' Ossë's capricious, precarious moods, but she could not let him go for fear of her feeling becoming reality.

_I'm sorry, okay? But don't laugh at my twin again like that. As much as I love you – in such a short time –, I love her too_,` she snapped at him at last upon realising that they had neared the rock formation. `_Now I need to concentrate on other things.`_ She swallowed, which had less to do with her nervousness at confronting Ron than with her pride. In the end, necessity won and she relinquished her pride for a sentence spoken in a rush: `_Do not leave this boat, would you?`_ Both of them caught the underlying meaning of it; `_Please do not leave me.`_

Ossë did not give a direct answer, but he relaxed and slipped back to the water, attaching himself to the rubber belt like a limpet upon a rock. He directed the boat deftly from there, leaving Dila to sit in peace, her paddle discarded across her feet. When they arrived, he left the boat and took up the task of removing Ron from the rock upon himself, ignoring Dila's weak, quiet protest.

Ron did not struggle and that, more than anything, worried the girl. Ossë was also subdued upon arriving back with the red-haired boy's limp form in his arms.

Indeed, Ron felt almost nothing by then. All that he felt was the heat burning him from inside out and the unrelenting wind slapping his skin with cold intensity. He dimly saw a strong beam of light crossing his field of vision, casting overbright sparks which danced upon the waves. Then someone – a male, seemingly – lifted him up carefully from the acurst rock with lean arms betraying his strength and carried him away. The stranger's gait was firm, as if he were treading on packed earth and not needle-sharp jagged face of rock. In his delirium, Ron fantasised that he was born away by an apparition summoned by Hermione to rescue him, far more effective than whatever way Dila had come up with.

He was satisfied.

Someone pulled a blanket over him and bundled him inside it. Then the same person – female, with elastic clothing, skin and hair smelling like the sea – cuddled him close to her like a wee baby. He was content. It could be Ginny, who often fretted over him as much as he did her. He let sleep overtook him, permitting himself the luxury that he had denied previously in fear of plunging into the sea to his death.

…Nightmare seized him like a hungry beast.

Nightmare assailed Dila also, despite her wakefulness. Ron's moans and feverish mumbling sent her mind into a frenzy. She did not hear Ossë talking to her, only focusing when he jabbed a finger to a spot under her left shoulder. `_What?` _she hissed, unable to filter the pain sizzling through her teeth and the mental link.

_I will meet you when Tilion's vessel is high up among the stars.`_

_Who is Tilion? What kind of vessel could be there in the sky?`_

_`He is t__he lovesick lunatic who steers the moon.`_

_You are kidding.`_

_`I do not__!`_

_But I have to tend to Ron.`_

_Who is Ron?`_

_The one you've just rescued.`_

_I will wait.`_

_But—`_

_I will wait.`_

Dila sighed in resignation – now being careful that it did not travel physically out from her lips or nose. `_Must you be so difficult? We can meet again tomorrow afternoon, you know.`_

_You do not like me being there with you? I just wished to accompany you in your difficult time…`_

_I know… You mean well… but—`_

_Do not give me that reason again, plese.`_

Another sigh from Dila.

_It's as if you were wounded deeply. It's just a fact, Ossë. I can't hide it if I want to be honest.`_

_But I was, and still am. Time does not lessen the blow.`_

She was silent. She could not provide any adequate answer for that, and did not wish to risk their brittle relationship for a wild venture.

He helped her to carry Ron to his room in spite of Dila's adamant protest. He took off before Dila's impatience blew up into fury, having noted her room. Dila was left to her own devises right when she needed his company, if not his support. She grumbled and cursed him silently, half-heartedly.

Upon arriving in her own chamber some time later, she regretted her promise to him. She needed to be alone to calm down and recollect her wits. Someone with Ossë's personality and intention – she suspected that he wished to share stories with her – was not a welcome presence when she could not even accommodate for herself.

Having taken a quick shower in the house trunk she had borrowed from Ana, she forced herself to eat some amount of food also there, in the kitchen, while the house elves bustled around and kept asking her if she needed more. They had been left too long without someone demanding their service, she realised with a pang of guilt. Sadly, she could not tolerate their unceasing urges and chattering now. She dismissed them with a flick of her wrist, her eyes flying briefly to the cupboard housing a ready supply of wine, teased by the temptation of drinking herself into oblivion.

_No. He's going to come, and I should be a good hostess.`_

_Yeah… Good… But without acknowledgement.`_

_No! I mustn't think that way!`_

_Why can't those creatures cease chirping like frenzied chicks? My head hurts!`_

She lied to herself partially; her chest hurt more than her head.

"Does Mistress Dila wish Dora to fetch Milly?" Dila's faithful house elf, Dora, appeared by her knees as she was sitting brooding on her hot chocolate on the kitchen counter.

"Yes, please, and Loril too," Dila mumbled absently. She had indeed missed her owl much. Besides, her funny, chittery puffskane had proven to be a potant source of consolation in the past.

Loril flew directly from atop Dora's head upon arriving in the big but deserted kitchen. She fluttered around Dila once then nibbed at her left ear – a bit too hard, eliciting a startled, pained cry from the girl.

"Loril! I'm sorry, okay? But we don't know this land enough to let you loose! You refused to be with many others in Susan's animal trunk…" she moaned, grimacing. "I didn't have enough time for playing either, and I thought you'd be safer here."

It did not work. When Milly was passed to Dila from Dora, Loril tried to claw at the energetic electric-blue furry ball. Dila wailed with pain and distress when the owl talons scratch the back of her hands instead in her attempt to save the innocent puffskane.

"Bring me my medical kit and lock Loril away for a while, Dora!" she half-howled half-moaned. In short, the silent kitchen was full of noise… and feathers.

Dora came back from Dila's bedroom in a condition worse than her mistress after struggling with Loril all along.

"Treat your wounds," Dila ordered curtly, her hands already seizing the medical box from Dora. "Come to me for the antiseptic."

There was a piece of Loril's silvery feather in her chocolate mug. She had lost appetite. So, surrendering to her bad luck – and bad night –, Dila trudged up out of the trunk without so much as a brusk nod to the house elves. The shocked and terrified Milly was chittering in Dora's arms. Dila was glad that she could escape the noise, for it stabbed at her skull like a thousand needles.

"It can't be worse, can it?" she mewled to the sealed trunk sitting at the foot of her bed. The open window let in a waft of breeze which caressed her back, but she paid it no heed, although it soothed the heat building in her body.

Yet, even as she said it, she knew that the situation could not mend magically – as she hoped in her desperation. Some said that a bad situation would worsen before going better…

If at all.


	11. Chapter 8: The Clouds Gathered Part 2

Notes:

Three chapters more – or less – we will depart Mithlond and be on our way to Imladris. I hope for your patience, good readers…

Two wide chunks of italicised parts here are intentional – they are flashbacks. I should have put them between lines of asterics, perhaps… but… *shrug*

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"How many days should we stay here?" Dila mumbled to a sheet of paper lying atop the house trunk. A pencil was ready in her listless hand, but the sheet was clean from any mark so far. How could she know how long they would have to stay there by the harbour, living from the generosety of foreign people?

She left the paper altogether a moment later. Born from part of inspiration and part of frustration, she pulled out her journal instead – from her pack. Then, looking at the pack, she got another idea. She seized the sheet of paper and put it atop her book, a wry smile on her face. "If I can't count our stay right to the date, at least I get the details and can speculate the amount of time we need here. No need the accuracy. I'm not being Dad's secretary here after all."

_And Dad is dead._

Cursing, Dila squeezed her eyes shut, willing the pain to subdue. The pencil cracked in her fist.

_Breathe! Breathe!_

_I can't!_

_Breathe—__ There is someone on the window._

Dila jerked. The held breath rushed out in a sharp hissing sound. The poor pencil cluttered to the place beside her paper and journal. She whirled around, eyes wide,

And saw no one on the open window. Why had her senses warned her?

Sighing in exasperation, she trudged up to the window in her slippers then closed the wooden shutters. If Ossë would like to come like a thief or a forbidden lover then fine, but he must knock at the shutters first like a polite, civilised folk. If it was really a thief or an assassin or a kidnapper…

She shivered. _You are strong, for God's sake! You can defend yourself!_ she reprimanded herself. _Besides, who would kidnap or assassinate you here? They barely know you._

But still, the coiling unease remained in her insides.

Harrumphing, she grabbed the pencil again and put the lantern to a new angle so that its light fell directly on the paper. Then she began, her small, roundish handwriting travelling across the head of the paper in a straight line resulting from years of practice.

**Seedlings' To-do List**

She smirked upon reading the first word there. Seedlings. Her friends would be indignant if they knew what name she had 'bestowed' upon their odd group. She herself did not know for certain why she had chosen that name over so many more dignified or meaningful ones, or so she thought. That name had only come after she and her friends had confronted the Valar some two months ago. One of the ethereal beings there had transvered some inspiring feelings and bits of visions to her, ones that she had not yet shared with her friends… like so many others.

Her mind wandering in reverie, her hand became idle. The cracked pencil was spun around between her thumb and index finger.

_What should we do first? Learning this new language or regrouping? We can't do both at once, since we have to get acquainted with the people and this land too._

_If we regroup first, there is only a small chance of breaking and scattering. But we won't be polite. Plus we don't know anything about the actual conditions in parts of this land and others… I know; Ana too, but how to explain to others? Most of them laughed at what happened some days ago in the Tower Hills__, so there's no reason why they shouldn't laugh at us now._

_If we learn the language and socialise with this folk first, our unity is in danger. Some may resolve to stay here and everything while we are still quite new to the land and without general consensus… But we may get much support from those pointy-ears; aside from their suspicion and misunderstanding, they are good folk and compliant. We can't be totally on our own, as much as we want it._

A tiny pout curved Dila's mouth down. Her left hand, the one bearing nothing, strayed to the pack by the trunk and slipped inside. Thoughts wheeled rapidly in her mind, but no one seemed to dominate the others; all possibilities were both enticing and frightening.

_What help is a mirror? _she grumbled when her errand hand presented her the two-way mirror she had kept in her pack before going surfing. The silvery coat gleamed brightly under the yellowish light of the lantern.

Somehow, albeit useless in her current predicament, she felt that the mirror held something of great import to her… But what, exactly?

Her thought did not linger there. It strayed back to her first task.

_We need to learn everything, quickly. We can regroup slowly in the end of each day… There must be a time left for ourselves among other things, surely?_

**Learn language – at least words, greetings and phrases**

**Learn culture – to be polite to all and avoid misunderstanding**

**Learn map – the topographic one, if they have it here**

**Learn history – in spare time only**

**Share thoughts with friends; share what I and Ana know from our night romp some days ago**

_Hmm. Can I smuggle in some things for myself?_

_But it will hinder our progress…_

_Not if I am careful, I suppose?_

**Dila's additional list:**

**Learn about the seas and river here + shipping**

**Learn cooking – in case there are new recepies I can try, or those I can teach**

**Learn about that boy I met in the sea as best as I can – he is weird!**

**Learn about Círdan – who knows an elf can have beard and gruff voice?**

_Umm. The title sounds childish… But whatever._

_They are not too many, I hope? Well, Ossë is not a problem – more likely, he'll reveal things I don't even ask. I can cook for the house while learning new recepies and perhaps share some… Can I arrange some casual talks with Círdan? I don't dare – at least not yet._

A sigh. Number four in the list was underlined with the help of the two-way mirror's edge and added with a note in parentheses: **(later)**.

_Number one isn't a problem… Those silver-haired pointy-ears will teach me gladly, from the look of it. So…_

Smiling a little bleakly, Dila leant back and stretched like a cat, the pencil cluttering on top of the mirror. _Finished_, she proclaimed to herself, but without the accompanying spirit.

She sprung to her feet, alarmed, when a series of rapid knocks sounded on the window shutters. She had forgotten the visit briefly when arranging a plan for her company, and did not quite remember that she had shuttered the window. The pencil, paper and mirror flew into the gaping top of the pack even as she was racing to the window, hoping that the now-insistant banging would not wake up anyone in the vicinity. Flinging her thought over the boards, she snapped, _Quiet! I hear you already!_

_You shuttered the window. The night breeze is not so cold. Why do you not wish for a bit of fresh air?_

_Because I somehow had a foresight that you would come from there._

_So?_

Dila gritted her teeth and struggled in order to hide her irritation from the person on the other side of the shutters. Clearly, Ossë had spent too much time in the sea…

She jerked open the shutters,

And skidded back some paces before she could take control of her reflexes.

Two bright orbs, shining like two windows overlooking a storm-torn sky, gazed into the room unblinkingly, the only light from outside save for the moon.

_Are you well?_

_Amused, are we? _Dila snapped, now annoyed with herself. Why did she fear him? But indeed, those eyes were creepy…

_It's not polite visiting someone through the window, you know, especially people from opposite genders_, she said before he could utter his retort.

_I am not here as your lover! _Ossë was indignant. Dila tried to preserve her irritation but to no avail. Her lips were cracked wide as she laughed silently, her body shaking. That boy was so innocent despite the feral beauty displayed by his features.

_I have no intention of such affair, Ossë, but still, dicorrom dictates us to behave at least marginally proper_, she smiled then, taking a seat on the bed, patted a spot beside her. Without a comment or second thought, her haphazard guest plopped down on it and promptly looked around. A sliver of uneasiness crept into Dila's heart, followed by a sudden bout of fragility and insecurity, yet she fought – hard – to control it. She was not defenceless, her friends were clustered nearby, and she had never caught even a single evil intent either from Ossë's thoughts, mind or aura; it was only that… he was too carefree and almost delinquent in her opinion – she, a girl who had spent much time romping in the wilderness with her family…

_A boy ran, almost flying, through the currently-deserted street. The afternoon was still early, and most people were either at home or work. Dila and Ana, twelve years old, rode pass him on __their tandem bike. They stopped promptly, though, because the boy looked like a hunted animal; his bright green eyes blazed wildly underneath his scuered glasses hanging on one ear. He looked to be their age, if not a bit younger, but his skinny, small stature made him appear like an eight-year-old malnourished boy._

_They intercepted the boy. He told them his name was Harry, and that he had been chased by Dudley – his cousin – and his cousin's gang. Dila offered him to switch places with her on the bike, and he was reluctant, but saw no other option when they all heard a commosion just around the bend; the spoken gang had caught up with them. Dila, who loved to run and was not bad at it, kept pace with the speeding bicycle as well as she could. At length, though, it was not her strength or will that moved her body, but the adrenaline that coursed through her veins, pumped by the fear of the rawcous noises sounding from behind her. She did not even look back when a well-sized stone knocked at the back of her head. A protective streak in her screamed at her not to be a coward and to shield her newly-acquired twin sister and the poor boy, but even as her body obeyed, cold sweat bathed it that had nothing to do with running. She never left the rear of the bike, fending Ana's back and head from the flying miciles, until they reached the town's square and spotted the twins' adoptive parents, who by then had been their blood ones through a magical blood adoption; seeing their father, the frightened girl threw herself at him and sobbed without thinking. She was truely terrified; not particularly by the gang, but more strongly by the alien sensation that she was being pursued hotly by an unknown, dangerous force as if a soldier retreating from a pack of feral enemies._

_George Kensington was a firm father and man, always ready to chide and laugh at appropriate moments. Now, however, on the sight of his proud daughter sobbing in front of the crowds' face and his other, terrified, doe-eyed daughter and a skinny boy who tried to protect her in place of Dila, his rare anger was stirred. That afternoon the people there knew why he deserved the title of Lord Kensington… but not in an entirely good light. That day was uneventful for all, and unpleasant at best._

_The twins and their parents took in Harry as their family member even as Dudley's parents were arrested for child negligence. __Having craved for stability, safety and family, the boy agreed to be adopted legally without any hesitation. Before long living with them, he found out how the twins came to be who they were and pleaded for his new parents for the same blood adoption, hoping to anchor himself to a kind, loving family before anyone else could take him away. Indeed, during that period all in the family had learnt about Harry's real identity – with the boy feeling nothing extraordinary about it – and how he had ended up on the doorstep of his mother's sister's house. "I was dumped like a bag of garbage," he said. "All for a stupid jibberish." He was adamant with his decision of staying away from the Wizzarding World despite his parents' coaxing._

_Suffice to say, a visit of Albus Dumbledore was not welcome. The old wizard sent three letters stating he wished to meet with the family; all were rejected, and the last was written by Harry himself – in words that made his parents punish him and order him to make it anew. By that time, Harry's inheritance – both some items left in his aunt's house and stored or directed in Gringotts – had been traced and taken under control by his parents by his leave. If not for Albus' coming with a troop of Hogwards staff and aurors, the merry little family would have been backpacking somewhere…_

A hand alit hesitantly on Dila's cheek. She started, forgetting who was with her in the room. "Pardon me," she stammered in her own language, staring in surprise at the baffled – and truthfully, a bit distressed – Ossë. She was still disoriented from her brief jaunt to the past and her thoughts, however, so the look on the boy's face hardly registered in her mind.

_What is your name? _Ossë shook her shoulder a little.

_Eh?_

_What is your name? I told you mine but you did not tell me yours_, Ossë repeated. Apparently, however, he did not pay attention to her answer as much as what he showed her. His eyes were full of concern and not curiosity or even annoyance.

_My friends call me Floodtide_, Dila smiled vaguely. _I am called thus, like you are called Ossë._

The boy snorted. Dila was forced to reveal her real name when he told her his name in the language he called Valarin, the name everyone using the language – his native one – called him. _Well, I will call you Ossë still, since that one is harder to pronounce_, she remarked after a thought, a slow smile blossoming on her countenance, gladdening the boy.

_The Elves seems to already have a name for me, though_, she continued with eyes rolling in bafflement. _What is the meaning of Eäreth?_

_I do not know_, Ossë confessed. _Probably the contraction of a longer name. You must ask them._

_But I don't know their language yet_, Dila sighed. _You and I understand each other just because of sharing our minds. I cannot do it to everyone I wish to speak to… and they might not appreciate an intruder into their minds anyway._

Ossë shrugged noncommittally. Dila rolled her eyes at him. Secretly, she wished him to be gone so that she could meditate and clear her mind. Her memory of Harry had brought a discord into her already-jumbled brain and she needed to sort everything out, but a part of her soul hoped he would always stay with her.

_Do you want something to eat or drink? _she offered, realising belatedly that she had none. But Ossë smiled in that careless way of his and said no without even bothering to look around and comment about the offer. She was relieved.

Yet the calmness did not stay long.

_You were recalling something. Your face was troubled and tears formed on your eyes, so I broke your concentration_, he said carefully. _Who is the man? I do not understand your concept of adoption…_ Then he added in a quiet, subdued tone very unlike him, _You love him above others. You love him as much as you love your twin._

_Loved, Ossë, love. He is dead_, Dila corrected him bitterly.

_No. Your love for him stays until now_, Ossë countered.

_And it tortures me_, Dila gave up. She had never admitted to anyone, even herself, after the last battle which then had led Voldemort to his death. The dam of her emotions broke and she curled up into a fetal position, weeping silently into the fold of her body, her head ringed by her clasping arms. A shaky hand gripped her shoulder, but nothing was spoken. Ossë had fled from her mind after having been assailed by an onslaught of feelings, emotions and images. Now he only sat by her, unmoving and distant like a statue except for a trembling arm resting on Dila's tense shoulders.

After a while, when her emotions were back under control, Dila wiped her tears with a handkerchief she produced secretly from the pocket of her breeches then looked strangely at Ossë. _I need to go out. I need to be with the sea. Are the waves, current and wind condusive now?_

Ossë's look was even odder when he answered, _They are. But why this sudden wish?_

Dila refused to say anything for a moment, but then the silence became too stifling and she sighed, relenting. _I love the sea, Ossë. What I did today was not a pretence; I enjoyed it to the deepest of my heart. Besides… I heard someone from afar this afternoon when we played. I hope I can meet him again. His voice was like my father's… all aspects of it._

Ossë looked away. Something uncomfortable slithered and rolled among her innets. _I do not mean to discount you in this or whatever else you might think_, she said, more to ease the unpleasant sensation in her abdomen than to convince Ossë – or herself. _I… I need to feel the sea wind on my face and smell it with my nose._

Without waiting for an answer, feeling that the restlessness was too much to bear, Dila scribbled a note from a new sheet of paper and put it under a steel paperweight. She put the note on top of the trunk, hoping that she would not be missed much if she was gone until late morning, then packed some things for herself as if for a sojourn somewhere farther than the beach. Ossë scrutinised her each movement but did not say anything until she had finished packing and was shouldering the knapsack. Then, without bothering to stand up, imitating his hostess', he stated – in a mild but nonetheless shrewd tone, _You are going for a long trip. Are you sure you only wish to feel the sea wind on your face?_

Dila blushed but said nothing. She threw a cloak over her and the pack then belted two daggers on her either sides. _Come join me if you wish_, she said shortly then strode to the door without looking back.

_You will be noticed. Do you wish so? _Ossë pointed out. Dila shook her head but kept striding away.

_I can bring us both safely to the beach without being seen. It saves much time also_, he offered. Dila froze. She turned around slowly, her heart thudding. It sounded like apparation in the Wizzarding World…

_Do you mean…_

_You know?_

Both occupants of the room stood in awkward poses, facing each other with wariness and uncertainty. It was ridiculous, an ever-practical part of Dila's mind observed vaguely.

_Are you really a mage? Wizzard?_

_Wizzard? Mage?_

_One who practises magic._

_Magic? It sounds like a fell word._

_You seemed to be a part of the sea itself. Are you magical, then? And no, to me and my friends, magic does not have a fell meaning; its practice is that makes it fell for some people._

_I do not know what you mean. I am a Maia, and my power is with the sea. If perceived from a certain angle, I am a part of the sea itself, indeed._

Awe swept across Dila. Her mouth hung open, and so did her eyes. Ossë looked even more uncomfortable, and now he was displeased. _Close your mouth. I am not one to be gawked at. You never did it to me before, but now you look just like those Elves._

Dila panicked. It was as if Ossë had decided to abandon her because of her reaction to the revelation. She strode hastily to him and gripped his upper arms. _No. Do not leave me, please_, she begged, humility burning her face.

_I do not wish to_, Ossë replied softly, averting his gaze from her. _But indeed, you terrified me there on the boat. I fear fire. He… he used fire and shadow and ice to his advantage and… and… I…_ He was quaking on the spot before the sentence was finished. He never finished it either.

_No. Do not continue. I apologise for that incident. I never meant to invoke that memory. Fire is a part of me, indeed, but__ I swear I shall never use it for evil purposes._ Hesitantly, Dila pulled him into an awkward embrace. It felt wrong. She had only ever comforted Ana, Harry and Vorin until then and held them like what she did now… What was wrong with her? Why did her heart stir when she was reminded of Harry?

_Shall we go? _she whispered when the boy in her arms had stopped quaking. _I trust you have… a solution for our transportation? _A wry smile tugged at her lips. _I wonder if mine is the same with yours._

She had no chance of uttering another comment, for then a sensation as though she was surrounded by cool morning mist assaulted her body from the inside out, and in a split second she was no longer in her room.

Instead, she found herself on the back of the inflatable boat she and her friends had used to rescue Ron before.

_Wow! Cool!_

_Cool? Is that a comment about—_

_Your means of transportation is no different than mine… except that it is much more comfortable._

Ossë grinned but said nothing; Dila did not pursue the subject further either. As if from prior agreement, they stepped out from the boat and brought it to the water line. There Ossë took the back seat while Dila, her pack bundled in a raincoat under her feet, seated herself on the front. The rectangular flashlight they had used before, which had stayed in the boat together with the others when they had left, hung from her neck like a pendant, unlit, for the moon shone brilliantly that night as if approving their tryst.

They braved the waves, going farther and farther into the sea. Not a sliver of fear went through Dila despite the logic that such a small boat would not survive in the open sea. The two friends rowed with confidence unfit for survivors of a shipwreck – who usually were on this kind of boat. Dila did not know where they went, but she trusted Ossë without any questions.

They wandered without a certain direction, or so it seemed to Dila. She never looked back, too interested by the play of light on the foam-crested waves. Before long, she was lost in the rhythm of the waves and her rowing and hummed a wordless tune to herself. Ossë accompanied her humming without her realising, and their surrounding nature seemed to sing along.

Despite the lul of peace, however, something nagged at Dila's mind, refusing to be swept away. She voiced the concern at last when the moon, whom Ossë called Tilion, was on its – or his? – peak. "Where are we going? Where do you bring me to?"

_Crap_. She realised belatedly that she had just spoken in English aloud. She had been so contented and peaceful – on the edge of bliss – that she had failed to note that she was not in the company of her siblings or even her friends. On Ossë's ensuing question, she repeated to him through their mind link – a little reluctantly.

She did not like what she heard.

_You will like it. The isle__ is small, but there you will not be bothered. We can go back when morning comes._

_You should have told me before_, she ground out, hiding her fear.

_I shall not mislead you. Do you believe that I am evil? _Alas, no luck for her. Ossë had perceived her fear.

_It is not about evil intent or not, friend. It is __more about… _Dila halted. She sighed at length, her mind bumping on a dead end regarding what words to describe her discomfort. _Just forget it for now_, she said at last.

Before she could rue her shattered peace, some heads broke the surface of the moving water to their left and greeted them at once with various voices and tones. The girl squeaked and retreated a little farther to the middle of the boat. Some of the heads laughed softly but not mockingly, presenting to her sounds she had always heard in various bodies of water. Then one, directly to her left, spoke to her, _Do not fear and fret, Laughing Sea Maiden. You are safe with us. In fact, our lord has bidden us to watch over you and guide you where you would go._

_Or__ Ossë_, another chimed in, her tone reprimanding. Ossë blanched and blushed in a quick succession Dila seldom saw.

Indeed, she did not see it with her mortal eyes as much as with her mental one. She was too occupied with a shark's finn she had just glimpsed somewhere ahead. She only… detected it; however possible it was, she herself could not fathom.

The shark drew closer, yet neither of the people half-submerged under the waves noticed it. Perhaps they chose not to, a part of Dila reasoned to herself, but at this time she could not grasp the idea; it was too bizarre in her mind. Her body, at this point, had moved forward on its own accord to her former seat and in short she had brandished the two knives on each hand.

Even the sea quietened upon her reaction to the predator, it seemed. A frisson of fear ran through her, and it was nothing to do with the shark at all. Somehow she knew that the shark was no ordinary animal.

The deadly fish hovered a short distance from the front curv of the boat. Dila pursed her lips. It seemed to taunt her, moving slowly… Nay, she would not give it the pleasure of striking or taunting back or even begging. A wilder part of her answered to the challenge and both her body and mind were enraptured by it.

As if admitting defeat, the creature rose up slowly from the water, back first then tail and finally head. It grinned at her, showing rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth; its eyes flashed with something the girl could not quite pin down to a point of recognision.

A toothy grin was plastered on Dila's half-shadowed face. A spark of thrill surged along her body right to her fingers and toes.

The shark raised its head and leapt forward. One knife struck, aiming for its vulnerable gills while the other poised in a vertical position, ready to land on its lower jaw, seeking its throat.

Then suddenly the pouncing predator vanished. Dark, cool mist surrounded its form and, when the shrouding mantel had merged with the heavy, salty air around the strange company, a man replaced it, his eyes – looking like the shark, were fixed warily upon the twin knives which were now drawn to before Dila's heart as though kobras in the verge of striking.

He grinned, and sharp small teeth greeted Dila's view. "Suilad, pen brêg," he chuckled, his voice the sound of churning rapids and swirling eddies. Dila, never once melting her glare into a milder look, turned her scowl reluctantly into a questioning frown.

Snorting, Ossë answered for her in her mind, _He said 'Greetings, wild one.'_

Dila winced; she had forgotten Ossë for a moment. Her defenses faltered. The strange man leapt at her, seeing an opening.

But he did not count on Ossë. At last the two wrestled on the boat while Dila, knives back on their sheaths, watched with exasperated amusement from the curv-point of the rubber belt of the boat. She only separated them – with her hands and feet as well as head – when the boat was being in danger of turning over to the mirky, silver-coated water. _Stop, you two; don't act like little children_, she chastised both men as her hands prevented the two pairs of grappling arms from connecting with each other again. _What should I do with overgrown boys like you, eh?_

_Just don't bother. That is our lord's reaction, always_, the shark-man smirked cheekily.

Dila snorted. _Poor him. He must have been fed up with your incessant quarrels_, she sniffed distastefully. Two sets of raucous laughter filled the night. She intended to keep a stern face, but it was a losing battle.

_Where are we going? _She turned back to her earlier question, refusing to acknowledge an amused smile that was steadily creeping across her face. She glowered at Ossë, but with muted intensity.

_An isle__; I told you. If you truly love the sea, you will not find it disagreeable despite its size._

_Is it a test or a challenge?_

_Both and none at all._

_Do not speak to me with riddles._

_Why?_

_You will regret it._

_How?_

_It would not be a surprise if told, would it?_

The boy loosed a long-suffering breath. He acknowledge his defeat with a smile – oddly accepting and gentle, almost indulgent. Dila was once more reminded that he was not as young as he looked and often acted. She bit bac her lips and tightened her face, fending off any ensuing facial gestures, and shielded her thoughts briefly from him in order for her to gather back her scattered wits.

Having made sure that the link was only shared between the two of them, she asked the question she had unknowingly kept so far, _Are you just playing with mme? You are far older and more powerful than I. I value your friendship highly – to the point where I regard you more as a sibling than a friend but I…_

She did not finish her thought, having no other words to describe what she felt; even images or feelings could not sufficiently stand for the odd emotion she had been having. Ossë was quiet and very still, refusing to meet her eyes or acknowledge her in any other means.

Uneasy and a little ashamed of herself, she turned away from him and regarded the shark-man instead. _Who are you? _she asked, her mind once again open for anyone.

_What do you wish to call me? _the youthful-looking man snickered, still with the cheeky tone and smile he had worn.

_Menace_, Dila answered in an instant. The shark-man threw back his head and howled to the star-strewn velvety sky with gales of laughter. Peevish, she growled and pushed him over the edge of the boat.

She did not quite know how it happened, but she ended up talking amiably with the shark-man – who called himself Calmion – on the front part of the boat while Ossë and the woman from earlier were holding a serious conversation behind their backs. The rest of the people, still half under the water, drove the boat to the destination which some time ago had not occurred to Dila's mind. She was the first to put a foot on the rough sand of the refered isle upon their arrival, in spite of all, her adventurous streak taking over.

She had not taken stock of her surroundings while in discussion with Calmion about sea creatures, ccurrents and seabed maps, but now she did – with some trepedation. Heavy mists, looking as if the very clouds had lowered themselves down from the sky, rolled about her, sometimes merging around her to form a cold, clingy cloak. The thick vaporous air felt almost alive, reprimanding her against trespassing into forbidden lands. The idea of relaxing her mind, soul and body in a remote land surrounded by the sea had been as delicious as a favourite meal, yet now it felt terribly wrong.

She retreated cautiously to the middle of the isle, dragging the boat with her. Nothing and nobody was on her way, preventing her. At length, she took a seat on a weathered rock the size of a boulder, gazing towards where she had come. She could not detect Ossë anywhere, but apparently Calmion and the rest of the odd company were nearby, surrounding the isle. The heavy mists parted when they sang softly, and the girl found herself relaxing into subconsciousness in a smooth slide.

She was only stirred when someone stepped onto the isle. Feeling her energy replenished and her sleepiness gone, she emerged out of her meditation and rose to her feet, uncertain with what she should do. The shadowy person, who loomed over her, was like the other people she had met on her way there, save for his majesty, according to all her senses. She found herself liking and trusting him at once also, as if they had met earlier.

Was he the one she had sought?

Tentatively, she extended her mind, wishing to communicate with the person, who was now arm-length from her. He did the same, it turned out, and she was overwhelmed by his vast consciousness – as vast as the ocean and twisted as the winding and forking streams. She felt both terrified and overjoyed. Here was the anchor she had sought far in the sea, the one she had but glimpsed in the previous afternoon.

_You are troubled, young one_, he crooned. Somehow Dila had ended up in his arms, rocked and carried like a small child.

And she found herself answering without hesitation, trusting him with all her life, feeling that they had been always together before although not in direct physical forms. She poured all her thoughts, fears, desires and doubts to him in a steady flood. He was not overwhelmed at all. In fact, he began prodding further into her mind – with her consent – and ran over certain memories as though cool, clencing water over wounds.

_You must come back, daughter_, he said sadly at length.

_I know_, Dila sighed, suppressing an impulse to whine. She wished the task of leadership had not fallen on her. Being a leader did not mean ordering people to her whims, after all, and certainly not when one of the subjects of her leadership was someone like Draco Malfoy.

_You are already in the correct path, daughter. It is hard, yet I have fait__h that you will find solace and joy along the way, and in the end all wil be worthy of your toils_, the entity crooned again. Dila took a shuddering breath and buried her head on the crook of his neck. He smelled so pleasant, salty like the sea but fresh like mountain springs, invigorating like hot, steaming geysers and at once pristine and unmoving like a chunk of ice or snow carpeting the earth. She would stay there forever, if she listened to her desire and not her logic or sense of responsibility.

Reluctantly, she straightened up in his arms and for the first time beheld his visage as lit by the cold rays of the moon.

His eyes lit from inside like Ossë's, but far more powerful in his own right. His complexion was that of an Elf although stronger and 'wilder' – not mentioning more majestic and beautiful. His hair was like sea-foam, curling gently down his back; when Dila leant over to nuzzle and sniff it, she could catch a smell of seaweed and wet sand from the water-soft locks. She took a great delight in playing with the strands.

_I wish Harry were here_, she whispered, whistful. _He loves being with family. He liked rowing and sailing with us. He is good with sails and stoking fire for a small steam boat…_

She became more and more childlike; she noticed the change but could not help herself. Here she was free to relinquish her responsibilities and worries to be a mere young adult that she was, or a child as seen by her parents up to some months ago.

_Which are your favourite moments with him? _the entity holding her – she never learnt his name even up to this point – prodded her with a warm, indulgent smile playing on his lips. A mixture of opposite emotions clashed within Dila, but she returned the smile with her own nonetheless and complied by showing him a series of memories.

"_Now we are family." The boy looked up, his clear, bright green eyes__, freed from the glasses after the blood adoption, glowing. "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Fernon and Dudley won't trouble me again."_

_Dila grinned. Beside her, Ana did the same. The boy, Harry, blinked. "I wish I had a twin, though. It must be good to have someone always by your side."_

_Dila laughed. "Not always, Harry," she grinned and threw a sly wink at Ana who, although her physical eyes detected nothing, sensed the change in Dila's mood nonetheless. In short the three newly-legalised siblings broke into a run, Ana guided by Harry._

_Ana always despised running, but now she did, with someone that was still akin to a stranger to the family. Jealousy flared in Dila's mind, but it was brief. Soon she realised that she, too, could put faith in the unassuming boy, for she knew that Ana would be the first to notice if the skinny wizard could not be trusted._

_Days flew, turning into weeks. Harry, like the twins before, devoured the knew knowledge and sensation of magic hungrily. He, like the girls too, was trained for court and given miscellaneous other lessons. A period of holiday was a welcome after the vigorous sessions,thus._

_Sadly, the first of it was already thwarted before it could have a chance to be even started._

"_Albus Dumbledore wishes to see us here," George, striding furiously into the sitting-room where his family were reclining, announced to his family, which included his youngest own child George Junior. "Tomorrow, at nine in the morning. He sent a brown barn owl right to my study just now. He does not pay attention to those three rejection letters, apparently."_

_Harriet was filling a crossword game. Dila was happily rocking in a crieky old but cosy rocking chair__, her fingers playing with a stuff toy idly. Ana was puttering on a corner with a labyrinth made of ice-cream sticks. Harry was amusing himself with colourful little bubbles from his perch on the head of the sofa – he had been bolder and less restrained by courtesy after a while – and George Junior, who had specially excused himself from his service in the Royal Marine for the holiday, completed the show by creating no-less-colourful rings of fire for the bubbles to fly through._

_On the announcement, though, the little heaven shattered._

"_I took up the break for naught, then?" young George raged, his play forgotten. Harry dropped his hands and slid to the proper place for sitting on the fluffy long armchair in dejection. Ana froze from adding a piece to her labyrinth and looked up, disbelieved. Dila stopped rocking and humming and pouted with obvious displeasure. Harriet sighed._

_Albus Dumbledore, thus, arrived __– slightly later than the appointed time – in the morning to a family of six politely hostile mages who were attired in robes bearing their House's coat of arms. The old wizard himself, accompanied by a group of aurors and a handful of what later they found out as some of the members of the Order of Phoenix, wore a splendid muggle attire._

"_You wished to have a conversation with us, but it seems you have changed your mind," George observed coldly by way of greeting. To Albus' credit, the old wizard did not even flinch on the imperious tone – although his followers had no such luck. Harry, standing sandwiched by the twins, did not bother from hiding a wry smirk; Dila basked not on it, however, but on the look on his face and eyes which suggested his contentment and security. He had taken his new family to his heart with no reserve, just like the twins had before, and so there was no worry of him leaving them._

_Apparently, despite the clear message, the troop of wizards – the family had begun to see their guests that way – did not notice it… or perhaps refused to. Without further ado, the headmaster of Hogwards – the twins' headmaster for the last year – stated that he wished to "return Harry to his proper community." And this time it was Harry who spoke up._

"_You placed me with muggle-haters," he accused, his tone mild but underlined with the sharpness of a knife. Harriet teachings of manners and proprieties seemed to be applied nicely – but exerted to their limits._

"_We must, dear, because Lord Voldemort's death eaters are not all safely within the walls of Azkaban and I must protect you from them."_

"_How?" Although the question was not needed, actually, given the thorough research done by George and Harriet of Harry's – who had been renamed Harlend James Julian potter-Kensington – past._

"_It is dangerous to divulge such information, Harry. Just believe us that—"_

"_We blood-adopted him. Do you not notice the blood wards around this house?" George cut in. "The matter is settled, then. None with ill intentions or bearing the Dark Mark upon his or her hand is able to enter." The wizards, even Dumbledore, blanched with both fear and fury. Several called the family followers of the dark arts outright._

_That was the last stroke for the exasperate__d mages – although one was still fairly new with his additional powers. Before the wizards knew what was happening, they were transported out of the range of the estate the family lived in with their memories washed of the location of the estate albeit not of the meeting._

_Albus Dumbledore came __back for the second time there just three days before the first day of the academic year in Hogwards, alone and much more subdued, and politely requested that the twins and their brother – George and Harriet had insisted that he refered him that way – be permitted to board the train and continued – or started – their education in the school. The proud wizard finally bent down so far as to accept the terms laid out by George and Harriet – which included recognising Harry by Harlend Potter-Kensington and allowing him time and space to practise together with his older sisters during the school year._

_Dila was not that impressed over her family's prowess compared to the unity she had felt from then on. The unpleasant meeting had strengthened the unique bond they shared, and she treasured it even to this day, with Vorin being added to the family five years ago and her parents removed five months ago. Physical contact between the family was free and often, and it was not a strange sight in their house if they lay tangled and piled atop each other on the rugs of the sitting-room or in George's and Harriet's bed at night after some playful wrestling match or a deep discussion about miscellaneous things._

_But now…_

_Patience, daughter. He awaits you far inland. He is safe._

Dila, wiping the silent tears that had run in steady rivulets unbeknownst to herself, looked up with tired, despairing eyes at him. _Who are you? _she finally asked the question she should have asked in the beginning.

The man – a father figure in her heart next to George – smiled and stated simply, _I am the sea, the rain, the mysts and fogs, the snow, the ice and the rivers with its branches and decorations._

She returned the smile, contented with his answer, defying her usual liking of straight-forward answers. _Can we see each other again? Like this? _she requested hesitantly, clinging to the entity with the ease she had priorly disliked from Ossë.

_We can, and we shall_, the entity said solemnly, and the weight of it was like a verdict announced by a jjudge. Dila sucked a sharp, deep breath. The full knowledge of the person she had nestled in whose arms struck at her like a well-aimed blow from a giant club. Suddenly, she was less sure of herself and their relationship. She was even afraid upon their intimacy – which she felt she did not deserve given the god-like nature of the father figure she had finally met physically, one that she had been so close to eversince her adoptive parents had introduced her and Ana all those years ago; it had only been a branched stream which led directly to the sea near the mansion they lived in, but still…

_I am the same person, daughter_, the entity spoke softly, sadly. _I do not change. It is your perception that changes. _With that, he lowered her to the rough sand covering the rocky composition of the isle. Strangely, in spite of all that had just transpired, Dila was reluctant to step away from him. She clung to his powerful form and buried her head into his misty robes for a while longer and he let her, his right hand resting upon her head in benediction and his left arm circling around her shoulders. The girl, conveniently standing only to his torso, let herself be lulled by the rhythmic thumping of his heart. Without knowing, she had slipped back into a meditative silence, replenishing her yet-again-spent energy.

When he released her, she was ready, and, a little embarrassed with the spectators watching from all around the shores of the tiny dot of land, she stepped to her boat and dragged it back to the water. She would not be welcomed by bliss ignorance like here, she realised, but with a breaking storm – in a figourative sense. Hopefully, she could cling to this bizarre but treasured experience during the violent times…

Yes, she hoped so.

_See you later, Father_, she smiled to the majestic figure upon the isle, who watched and raised a hand at her in silent farewell as he returned her smile. She had gained a new purpose in her life, one that she had never been aware she had lost, and she would share it with the rest of her friends…

After the storm, though, not during it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional Notes:

I apologise for the lateness – and perhaps the length too. I hope this chapter sated your curiosity a bit and fulfilled its purpose of becoming the closure of the two parts…

I will try to speed the story a bit. I am too slow… The story is ladened with too many details, I think. I apologise and thank for readers who have coped up this long with this bit of inconvenience. :-[ However, I will not be able to update quickly due to my undergraduate essay and the other story I must keep up with – Brother Mine. I beg for your patience and support… Please tell me if somehow Dila has become a Mary Sue too, or if anything is amiss during the story.


	12. Chapter 9: Of My Two Names and Two Pasts

The morning is still early. Silence envelops the vicinity. Not even a bird chirps in the branches overhead. This place, a glade in the northern fringes of the valley where I have been staying for the last two months, is perfect for me. I would be able to detect an Elf's coming because there is no other living creatures nearby save for the trees, and the noises made by other intelligent, sentient races would sound like trumpets in the quiet.

Especially if it were Dudley. Or should I say if it Is he?

I scowl with disdain. That baby whale of the land has plagued me since my arrival here some two months ago. To make matters worse, the Elves, our hosts, secretly – or not so secretly, sometimes – blame me for his undesired presence. Whom can I blame in turn? The fate? Dila? Our harebrained plan of experimenting with the brand-new contraption invented by the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries?

As much as I wish to hate – or at least to be very miffed with – my sister, though, I cannot deny the suspicion that she was just as startled… or more… when the pad on which we were standing produced a whirlwind which then turned into smaller factions and trapped each of us separately, sucking us in before we could do anything against it. Even Hermione must not have guessed, or else she would not have shrieked so shrilly. Yet still…

I ssigh and plop onto a bed of pine needles under a young pine tree. The unique fragrance of the tree, coupled with the crisp air of the height of the place I am in, help me to relax. I stretched out my body and limbs after letting go of my pack. Feeling more relaxed, I lean back against the tree trunk, my mind wandering.

Unfortunately, my mind has the habbit of roaming to places my conscious thoughts decline to enter.

But, perhaps, just this once, there are answers after the 'examination'?

What answers are they, though?

I was born in a comfortable and moddest cottage – according to my godfather – in Godric's Hollow, somewhere in Scotland. For a year, I lived happily with my parents, James Potter and Lily Evans, with the occasional visits of Sirius Black, my godfather and my father's best friend. I remember little to nothing about my life that year, my earliest.

But I do remember what happened next, thanks to the dementors and the incessant publication of the tragedy.

It turned out that my family's undisturbed living was due to the Fidelius Charm my parents had performed before I was born. Their secret keeper at that time was Sirius, as expected from two friends closer than brothers such as he and my father. But even the best of alternatives could fail, and it was no different with this one. One night, Halloween Eve October 31st after my first birthday, the foe we had succeeded to elude barged in abruptly into the sitting-room where we were relaxing before turning in for the night, thanks to Peter Pettygrew, the new secret keeper, one of my father's best friends while in Hogwards.

From the memory evoked by the dementors, I saw that my father, in a moment of bravery – or perhaps desperation –, ordered my mother to run away with me while he was trying to fend off the Dark Lord as long as possible. He hoped to stall Voldemort from reaching his goal, or even to thwart Voldemort's intention altogether.

My mother did run, but Voldemort caught up with her in the nursery. She pleaded for him to spare me, a bundle of life lying on the table shielded by her body. But what do you expect to happen? What do you expect such a heartless, twisted man to do? Of course, he would not surrender his pray, even if it meant killing another that was not his chief target.

He did kill my mother. Her cries, the first part of the tragedy the dementors 'gifted' me with, ceased alongside an ominous rumbling sound and a blinding green light.

Then it was my turn.

I did not need the 'help' of the dementors for this, for my dreams were sometimes visited by that nightmare during my early childhood. During that period, though, I did not know the significance of it; I remembered only the sound, the light, and a searing pain. I asked Aunt Petunia and Uncle Fernon about it, but they only told me to close my mouth and never ask about it again. Later, when I asked how my parents had died, I was told that they had perished in a car accident, so I assumed that the sound, the light and the pain had come from the moment of collision.

It was not true, like so many lies my aunt and uncle had told before or after. I grew with the knowledge wedged in my mind for ten years, however, never knowing who or what my parents had been and ever bullied by my cousin Dudley and his gang.

I rued the day Albus Dumbledore ordered Hagrid to fetch me from the ruins of my first home to be placed in that hell… and I still do, at times. Perhaps, if I were to live with Sirius as his – and my – right was, my godfather would not have pursued the traitor Peter Pettygrew in a recklace, revenge-burnt chase, and he would not spend so many years in Azkaban for a false accuse?

Well, regardless, he did, so I lived for ten years in a life full of food scraps, second-hand clothes, cupboard-under-the-stairs bedroom littered with spiders, constant misery courtecy of a brainless, rowdy gang led by Dudley, and my aunt and uncle's general uncaring approach. "Do not ask and you will not get in trouble – or at least too much of it" was the rule there, applied specially for me.

Some time before my eleventh birthday, it all changed.

That afternoon, several days into the summer holiday, I was chased by Dudley and his gang, as usual, in one of their favourite games: Harry hunting. I must thank my small, skinny body, for I had eluded them – especially the overweight Dudley – many times just because of it. They would ambush me somewhere in the vicinity of the neighbourhood, preferably the park, and I would have to run away as quickly as possible; slipping into the nearest bush or up the nearest tree, or down the streets to who knew where.

I ran without seeing where that afternoon, indeed, and without paying attention to whom I was passing. That day I was stopped mid-run, though, by a moddest-looking girl and another girl who looked like her twin; they were riding a tandem bike, the only thing unusual – or perhaps extraordinary – about them. I did not expect to be halted from my flight like that. I never hoped to be saved by them either.

Dila, the girl who had stopped me, did save me in the end. She pushed me to her seat on the bike and urged me to ride on. I protested, of course, but she did not want to hear any of it. She was so cocky and too naïve, I said to myself.

Well, it was before the gang caught up with us. Remarkably, she kept running behind the bike, shielding us from view. And later, she shielded us from the flying stones as well.

She only broke down upon reaching the town square, the place I had never travelled before. She flung herself to a noble-looking man with features vaguely similar to hers. I was left alone with Ana, her twin; instinctively, I replaced Dila's role in defending her.

I did not get a chance of doing so, though. The man, who turned out to be indeed a noble of high rank, acted swiftly on Dila's report – I do not dare say whining, because it did not appear to be so. He called witnesses to the case – mostly his personal guards and some policemen – and used the three of us as bait for the gang; we just have to stand around the bike, pretending to be horrified. Dudley and his lackeys took the bait, and fell in the trap.

And the 'hunter' – that fearsome nobleman – clamped in the hapless, unwitting boys. I did not know should I pity them or be glad that they would be taken care of at last.

The choice was not for me to take at that time, anyway. Events wheeled so rapidly. The gang, whining and spouting excuses – and in Dudley's case, crying and throwing a temper tantrum –, were hauled to the nearest police office. I was taken with the twins to a restaurant outside the town, meanwhile, treated in a private room with a meal I had only dreamt of tasting. I could eat as much as I wanted to and by my own choice!

The nobleman introduced himself as George Kensington. His wife, Harriet, followed suit in the introduction. They had four children aside from the twins, they said, but the first one – a daughter – had died a long time ago, and the rest did not live with them anymore. Their last child,who was named the same with his father – George – had instead run away from home not long after the death of his eldest sister. I could see that the two events had impacted the couple the most, and still did, and my heart automatically went out to them. The story-sharing and their trust on me made me feel comfortable and even familiar to them. Perhaps I should feel strange about it; but in truth, I instead wanted it even more.

There was an undisguised warmth about them that I liked at once. It was far from those polite pretenses or 'honey-coated steel' manner people, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Fernon especially, practised. The twins, past their shock, were more silent but amiable nonetheless. They were only a year older than I, yet it seemed that they had learnt much, both in good and bad light, far above my experience. I felt very young, sitting by those quiet girls who – I bet to myself – were absorbing the recent events and situations inconspicuously.

The family took me to their home after the late lunch. I marvelled at the mansion they lived in, but I did not get any chance to feel unfit for such a grand environment. I was taken to the girls' bedroom and there I chatted and played with them until the evening, when I was shown to my own chambers by the couple. My own! I could not believe my luck that day. First the grand meal and now the grand apartment for myself… It would have been too much to take in had the twins not accompanied me in all of the transformation with their witty humor and sisterly attitude towards me.

My aunt and uncle refused to take me back in; George told me the morning after. I, secretly, rejoiced in that, because the family I had just met had taken my heart fully, to the point that I wished to be adopted by them. I maintained a grave look, but I did not know if I managed to fool him – or any of his family for that matter. We continued with life as if nothing had happened afterwards, and it was also as though I had always been there with them, not a stranger who had only come into their lives the day before in a rather 'unorthodox' way.

The Dursleys – minus Dudley – must attend a court for child negligence and abuse. During that period, I continued living with the Kensingtons and learnt their way of life and their background stories. And when the Dursley couple were finally sentenced for several years of imprisonment, I at last knew how the twins had been adopted. Sadly, I did not have the courage to approach their parents about that subject.

The nagging problem was swept away from my mind when we endeavoured to reclaim the things which should belong to me, firstly from the Dursleys' residence then Gringotts, the Wizzarding bank. During this physically-and-mentally-grueling period, I found out that Aunt Petunia had hidden many artefacs belonging to my mother and those of my grandparents which were ment for her – and thus for me. I also found out that both my family account and my trust fund in Gringotts had been controlled – and used rather liberally – by Albus Dumbledore as a self-appointed Wizzarding guardian of mine… without my notice at all. Useless to say, I was rather vindictive towards him at that time. The will of my parents, when the account manager read it for me and the Kensingtons – on my insistence – did not say specifically that Albus Dumbledore should take over my care in the event of my parents' deaths…

I took back control of my trust fund and entrusted my family account to the twins' parents, who I had begun to recognise as my own. But something happened that I had never dared to hope before.

The noble couple offered to adopt me; I was beyond estatic. I did not care that they did it before the account managers of my deceased family and theirs, although actually I would prefer a more private audience. They told me that they could wait for however long for my answer, and that I should take time pondering carefully about it… I did not need the time, and I told them just that. Somehow, I managed also to blurt my long-kept wish of being blood-adopted like the twins. Now that I had done it, the effort seemed strangely easy.

They were taken aback, but their approval did not take as long as I had guessed. That evening I returned to the family's home as a rightful member, renamed Harlend James Julian Potter-Kensington, and needed the taped glasses no more. My features changed a little; for the better, in my opinion. My vivid green eyes stayed the same, except for the perfection of my sight, and my unruly black hair too. But my complexion became smoother, making me look more like my mother, and I acquired more weight and height. I was so happy that the hardships I had been enduring seemed trifial at that time. I did not pay much attention when Harriet told me that now I also acquired several traits from the family, including their unusual magical abilities. What I wanted at that time was a family to live and share with, not some additional powers; the latters were just a bonus, to me.

It was hard at first to act casually among them. I had been rather reserved when I had boarded – in my terms – in their house (they insisted to call the mansion a house). After all, I had thought, they had not been my legal family and I had just been living from the generosity of strangers, despite what my heart told me. But now that I was officially family, I, without saying, was required to act as a close family member should. It was both daunting and relieving at the same time.

I could never laze around in the Dursleys' house, and certainly I could not lay myself down with legs half-raised while reading in their sitting-room – a pose which I now imitate from observing Dila. But my new family were nothing but patient and I felt myself gradually relax in their midst, recognizing the place as my very home at last. And only then did I begin to relax and forsake unnecessary formalities.

My early living with the family was not idle. I continued to attend informal sessions of magic – theories and practice – with the twins, taught by our parents and Viniele, who was formerly the twins' governess – and now mine also. The lessons were not only about magic, though, but also formal manners, self-defense, and miscellaneous other things. I loved every minute of each session, however boring it might seem to the twins, simply because I realised that at last I had gained the education that every child deserved to get, one that I could only crave when living with the Dursleys.

I took up new hobbies too, mainly reading novels and writing my own, and seeking the sources of every tool I came across. I was surprised one day when the runaway son, George junior, appeared on the doorstep of the house and declared that he wanted to see his new sibling for himself. I had not known that he had been reconciled with the family… I was baffled and a little hurt, but then my new mother (How glad I was to be finally able to call someone "Mum"!) explained that everyone had been too thrilled with my presence in the family and forgotten to inform me, and that she and George senior often refered to the past as though present for the deep pain it caused them.

It did not take a long time to mollify me. Before I was fully aware of it, I had laughed together with Dila in one of the gardens surrounding the mansion, our soldier brother chasing us and traps laid out by Ana waiting for us ahead in unexpected places. That was one of our favourite games each time the weather permitted us to play outside. Well, it did not mean that we would baulk if it was raining; but we also liked to swim in the pool in the basement of the mansion, and we did that when the rain was a steady downpour… or when Mum found out about our outdoors trysts during such time and herded us back in for a less-risky play – or so she said. Her prohibitions usually were met by colourful protests, and I even involved myself in the series of reasoning, pleading and whining sometimes! I would question myself how could I have been so daring when I had time to ponder about it – usually when I was taking a shower after swimming. When I was fully aware of myself and followed my conscious mind attentively, I was usually rather careful towards rebelling against my new parents; after all, I did not want to lose them just because of a disagreement. Later, when I became too immersed in my familiar attitude to haul myself out from it, I realised that actually some of my personality had totally changed.

Still, I might change, but not the family I was a part of now. George, my father, was just as stern to his children. Harriet was just as fussy as before, and the twins as casual but mysterious in their own way. Unfortunately, however, I tasted my father's disapproval to soon…

I would like to blame it on Dumbledore, to be honest. Well, I never said that to anyone, though. How not? Just a month after our last visit to Gringotts, he wrote a letter with such confidence and authority, asking why I was not with my Muggle guardians and why he got a report that I Had been causing a scene. He, an illusive figure who had controlled my life like a puppet, pretended to be a concerned father now. What right did he possess over me after all? Was it not just well for me to be angry with him?

Well, apparently it was not so, in Dad's opinion.

It did not help that Dumbledore sent two more letters in the same vein.

I burnt the two letters just after reading and let the ashes be born in the breeze in the direction of the sea.

Apparently my father did not agree with me also in this… or perhaps with my mannerism towards this problem. He managed to read my reply letter – since I at last decided to send one – and made me rewrite it under his watch into a much politer one. I wanted to explode to him at that time but caught myself at the last moment. I had just gotten a family, a good and – to me – perfect one, and I did not want to lose every one of them so soon; certainly not by way of 'war' too.

Irritated with him, I trained in my marshall art classes and my weaponry ones more vigorously. I needed to channel the stifling feeling of rebellion; if not I would break under its pressure. Viniele told me that it was just common for a son to be at odds with his father in a family, and a daughter with her mother likewise, but I was not happy at all about the situation; she did not manage to console me that way. I did not want to disagree with someone who I respected in all ways as my father, for any reasons, over serious matters. I valued his opinions greatly, and to oppose him like what I did, despite what my rebellious mind told me, was somehow wrong.

I was glad that the problem was over in just two days.

Albus Dumbledore, the old coot (my parents would explode had they known I called him that way just because it was not polite) sent the fourth letter to my father the evening two days after his last one. Well, now Dad was the one to swear… and got a scathing glare from Mum. (I, the twins and George junior snickered quietly in the background amidst our respective plays.) Now Dad felt for himself what I had been feeling in the last week.

"Albus Dumbledore wishes to see us here. Tomorrow, at nine in the morning. He sent a brown barn owl right to my study just now. He does not pay attention to those three rejection letters, apparently," were the actual words Dad uttered after swearing colourfully as he strode into the sitting-room. (It seemed that Dad had somehow known that I had burnt the letter without replying, I thought to myself, and he had taken the task to himself. Now our little quarrel became clearer to me.)

Getting over the amusement to our father's ironic behaviour, we realised then that our holiday – the first I would take with my new family – would be endangered if this plight did not cease soon. George Junior – whom we sometimes called Jerry in jest – was the first one to protest, since he had managed to get a long break from his duties in the Royal Marine to join us in the holiday; it was not easy at all to excuse oneself from a military duty, less to take a long break like him, I had known by then. We had promised ourselves and each other to go backpacking and camping somewhere solitary in the forested areas of North Ireland…

We did not reply the letter, knowing that it would be futile. Instead, we prepared ourselves and our house as well as possible for various circumstances… including for battle, which I secretly hoped would not ever occur. I was not quite versed in magic or mandane weapons yet, that was why. I put much confidence, more than I was comfortable with, in my family; it was only that without the skills I possessed for myself, I felt very vulnerable, despite the protection my family would give me at any cost. I did not like being dependent on anyone, especially when the subject matter was my life or freedom. This time, neither the twins nor Jerry managed to bring me out of my dismal mood.

We clad ourselves in robes denoting the title of my father and bearing his coat-of-arms – a wand crossing with a naked sword under which was a crown atop white and red roses. My father had his sword with him and my mother her daggers, but all of the weapons were concealed well. George slung his SA80 over his back, covered well underneath his cloak – which made him the only cloaked person in our midst –, while the twins and I equipped ourselves with our wands and daggers in hope of never having to use them. Viniele, on general consensus, lurked in a shadowed nook of the front porch, ready for anything. We truly looked and behaved like a small troop of soldiers, and I regretted it bitterly.

The old wizard arrived at our front yard later than the time he had promised. To our slight surprise, he brought with him a group of twenty or so wizards – aurors from the Ministry of Magic and his own Order of Phoenix, according to Dad. We had indeed prepared for the worst scenario, but then we had only adhered to military tradition, namely "always prepare multiple plans to answer for multiple outcomes."

"You wished to have a conversation with us, but it seems that you have changed your mind," Dad said by way of greeting. If I were at the receiving end of that cold tone and demeanour, I would have flinched or even run away. But, to the old wizzard's credit, Albus Dumbledore appeared unruffled. His calmness was not shared with his troop – for we had begun to see our other 'guests' that way – unfortunately, and I could not contain my smirk at that.

We did not invite any of them into the house. Dumbledore did not seem to mind, nevertheless, and there, in the front yard and flanked by those battle-armed wizzards, he began his speech about me… as if I were not there. He talked about the high and precious task falling to his shoulders when my real parents had been murdered by Voldemort, and how he had tried his best to secure a good environment for my upbringing by putting me in the care of my last blood family. Then he talked about my mother's sacrifice that could be made to ensure that no one could harm me if I were to be placed with her sister…

In the end, he proclaimed that I was to be returned to my "proper community."

I had exhausted the last reserve of my patience.

"You placed me with magic-haters," I said, careful not to sound impolite despite my obvious contempt. Now I exerted the tricks I had learnt during my manner lessons to its full potential too.

"We must, dear, because Lord Voldemort's death eaters are not all safely within the walls of Azkaban, and I must protect you from them."

Rubbish, I said to myself, but my countenance did not change – although it tired me out, having never to hold up my façade for long before this.

What more did he wish from me? I had a good family. I had a good life. I had a good education. I was secure… Surely he would have been content now, if his claim that he only had the best intention for me was true after all.

But I did not say it aloud. In fact, my mind had drifted away idly. I no longer paid attention to what was happening.

My attention only came back when some people started calling my parents and family the followers of the dark arts because of the blood adoption I had taken. I was not reacting swiftly, however, for just as I opened my mouth to argue, five spells from the rest of my family had transported Dumbledore and his troop away from the front yard. Jerry then told us that he had wiped their memory of our home's location, albeit not the meeting. We were free for a time, finally…

In anticipation of more trouble, though, we cancelled the backpacking trip and camping. To replace it, we visited the fortress castle Dad inheritted from his family line, which stood on a rocky island and in fact filled it from beach to beach. It was like going back to the middle ages! There was a long bridge – looking like a gangplank, actually – made of very thick interwoven ropes connecting the island and the mainland, and we must cross it on foot.

Anyway, the holiday we spent there – exploring all parts of the fortress including its high towers and deep dungeons – was one of only a few good parts we would experience in the year.

Dumbledore visited us again three days before the new academic year in Hogwards started. He pleaded to my parents to let the twins – who should be in their secondd year there now – and I to attend the school. There were some terms laid out by Mum and Dad in exchange of their permission, including calling me by the name Harlend Potter-Kensington – which I approved wholely – and, believe it or not, the old wizard agreed readily enough.

I made friend with Ron in the train which would bear us to Hogwards, the Hogwards Express. Unfortunately, it had a rather rough beginning.

That morning, our parents had just bidden us good bye in the compartment we had chosen. My twin sisters sat opposite me, whispering to each other and giggling as if silly girls plotting to stalk their favourite boys. I did not have time to ponder on the strangeness of their doing – for they seldom did so –, however. Someone slid open the compartment's door and greeted us. "Hello. I'm Ron Weasley. Can I sit with you? Everywhere's full."

It was Dila who answered, as was our unspoken custom – for we were, and still are, all lazy and Dila often got to do or say things we were reluctant to do on our own. "We are Ardila, Ariana and Harlend Kensington. Sit with us, if you wish, but I think you'd better sit with my brother over there." She pointed to herself, Ana, then me. I frowne and rolled my eyes at her formal approach and hidden intention, but I welcomed Ron anyway.

"Hi," I said, patting the seat beside me. "Don't bother with Dila too much. She can be too formal sometimes. We call each other and ourselves Dila, Ana and Harry. Is this your first year?"

The newcomer, Ron, nodded absently. He continued by telling about his large family and their poverty, and how he always got second-hand things and could not be the best because the achievements of his older brothers. He asked me then, "How about you?"

It was the part I dreaded, although I had expected that I could not be saved for long even after Dila's deliberate – I suspected so – slip on my sirname. The lightning mark I bore on my forehead, courtesy of the Death Curse Voldemort had cast upon me, was still there – until now – and it was my luck that so far my fringes covered it well.

My sister must have sensed my predicament, for Dila gave me an unobtrusive wink and seemed to concentrate on something. I felt nothing, but I knew she had done something to cover my scar, because she looked at it intently for nearly half a minute.

Then I told Ron, "Well, you are luckier than me. Until some months ago, I didn't know how to play chess – and I didn't have any set of it anyway. My aunt, uncle and cousin ensured me a hellish life full of food scraps and second-hand clothes some sizes too big for me. I'd like to have siblings, but my real parents died when I was only one. Now I have parents who love me, though, and here are my adoptive siblings." I waved vaguely at the sisters, who pretended to busy themselves – I knew from experience. I wonder why Ron was not thankful of his family, poor though they were, but I did not dare say it aloud.

Ron was mollified and slightly guilty; I was relieved. "Sorry," he said, and seemed to mean it. "Well, do you know about Harry Potter, then? His story is like yours, I hear."

"Who?" It was not entirely a lie for me, for my mind reasoned that there could be more than one person with the same name … and anyway it was no longer my correct name.

"Harry James Potter, the saviour of the Wizzarding World from You-Know-Who… The one-year-old boy the son of two of the best witch and wizard ever… How can't you know? All children in our world know of him!"

"Well… I was raised by non-magical family," I said shortly in a drawl. If his explanation about me was like that, I supposed it was safe to tell him that I did not know this "Harry Potter the hero." I was not that person, anyway; not that I was aware of.

Something strange gleamed in the red-haired boy's brown eyes. "Harry Potter also lives with Muggles, or so Mum and Dad told me and my siblings. Dumbledore put him there himself straight from Godric's Hollow."

Anger rose within me, but then Ana distracted me by flying a paper plane to my face with magic. I glared at her, transvering my anger to her. Well, now guilt – towards her – replaced the anger…

"Oh, you can do it? Cool!"

_`Hmm. Now his attention is with her.`_

"Of course. What do you account me for? A first-year?"

_`Oh my… He blushes as red as his hair!`_

"I thought you were also a first-year…" Ron visibly ggulped. "Then is…" He looked at Dila. She nodded briskly. "Sorry," he offered meekly afterwards, which my sisters accepted blandly.

It was not until the welcoming feast that the timebomb finally blasted.

We first-years were lined up for the sorting before the whole school. Ana was sitting at her House's table, the Slytherin – earning a disbelieving, disgusted look from Ron –, chatting with Tracy and Daphne, her roommates. Dila, being accounted for all the Houses, the first time since the foundation of Hogwards – but more because neither she nor the Sorting Hat could choose the best House for her –, was currently hovering with the Ravenclaws.

I did not care where I would be placed, although I hoped it would not be with Draco Malfoy, a snobby, spoiled boy I had come across in the Diagon Alley when I had been wandering alone to near to the Knockturn Alley. I was too occupied with Dila, who was making funny faces to me as though I were a baby, and the thoughts of the school's first day, to be nervous about what House I would be put in. When my name was called – "Potter-Kensington, Harlend" – I came up automatically to the stool on top of which sat the Sorting Hat. My face was as unfocused as my mind – or so I thought.

Well, my consciousness rushed back to me in the end, just before I let the hat drop over my head. I heard a sharp gasp from Ron – who was still in the line – and the murmurs that suddenly broke all around the Great Hall. I did not dare to lift my eyes, to confront the eyes of Ron or any other else in the hall, albeit. I was afraid to confront the confusion, surprise and betrayal – from Ron – that even my yet-untrained ears and feeling picked up.

I let the hat drop, blocking my and their view.

I was put in Griffindore. The hat offered me to belong in all Houses, but I had learnt from Dila's experience that being accounted for the four Houses was not a pleasant experience viewed from any angles.

I was accosted by the gleeful Gryffindore right as I was approaching their table. Two red-haired boys, a pair of twins, thumped me heartily on the back and seized my hands for a wild dance. I suppose they were Fred and George, Ron's closest older brothers. Sadly, I did not get the same enthusiasm from Ron himself.

"You lied to me!" he roared for all in the raucous table to hear. A punch flew to my nose, but one of the twins caught it midway.

"It's not a way to greet someone, Ronny."

"Let me go, Fred! What do you know about manners, anyway? You break the rules almost in every chance."

The other twin, George, piped in. "Well, loyalty is a trait of the Weasleys, if you look at it closely." There was a touch of reprove in his light, humorous tone.

"Let him go, please," I begged them. I did not want to see Ron humiliated before the other students, although he, in a way, had done it to me. My reason was that he had a good heart even if his words were not always placed well. One from the few lessons I had learnt during my life with the Dursleys was that I should look deeper than the surface of anything – including people.

"You lied," the boy reiterated with just as much venom after the twins had obliged by letting him go. I neither acknowledged nor ignored him. I just stared into his eyes. Truthfully, I was at a loss at the moment to what I should say.

But my stare apparently seemed like I was reading his mind, for he looked so uncomfortable.

"I did not," I said at last, after the same paper plane from the train sailed over the pointed-hat-covered heads to nuzzle my temple.

Ron narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the neon-green little origami plane then glared challengingly at me.

"Well, you see, my proper name is not Harry Potter… It was, okay, when dealing with formalities such as at school, but otherwise people called me 'boy', 'skum', or 'freak' until some months ago. Then I was adopted and you heard yourself that my name is not Harry Potter anymore," I explained exasperatedly. He was trying on my last reserve of patience.

He capitulated, thankfully. Our friendship was awkward at best even after two weeks had lapsed, but I thanked my fate that he was no longer my enemy. As much as I hated to acknowledge the fact, I realised that I could not stay friendless even for the rest of my first year only; it would be a pitiful existence, regardless of my additional lessons together with my sisters every spare time after the school schedule. I needed a boy friend; I could not only interact with girls, as enjoyable as the twins' companionship was.

Ron gradually melted into my little group, which had only consisted of Me and my sisters in the beginning. He scorned what he called Muggle science and arts at first, though. His acceptance of the topics we were learning, practising and discussing was only helped by the presence of Hermione, a bossy fellow Griffindore who had befriended my sisters. Ron appeared to think that it was a self-insult if he could not best her, and so he strove to perfection – in his own way – whether in magical or Muggle studies. Later Ana – often the shrewder of the twins – pointed out to me while we were alone after the other had left the room that Ron was jealous of my lively discussions and banters with Hermione, thinking that she had stolen his friend from him.

Indeed, although often insufferable, the bookworm was knowledgeable and eager to learn more. My sisters seemed to be shaping her into thinking out of the box too in our sessions, not only sharing knowledge with her, for she became more amiable and less bookish in the fifth or so meeting of ours in an unused classroom in the first floor of the castle. Needless to say, Ron was hard-pressed to find a flaw in her to taunt and so he fought to be her equal in the matter of both practical and theoretical lessons.

Regardless, we became neat little group from then on. We suffered punishments together also when we were pulling pranks on people, trailing in the wake of Fred and George. It was often the red-haired twins' ideas which moved us into action, and Hermione stuck her nose up at what she called childish nonsense… but it was Hermione too who often came with the most brilliant, devious ways to operate on the ideas.

We were also one during dangerous events and occurrences, although I hoped it could be otherwise sometimes.

Yes, I hoped. But my hope was an empty one…

Was it not?

I look up from the little basket I have been creating unconsciously. My eyes widen when my sight discerns the view before me and its importance.

Someone is sitting there, under another pine tree opposite me, only an arm's length away.

He is not one of the people who call themselves Elves who live in the valley, too, if my senses do not fool me.

And he has been there for who knows how long, judged from the relaxed pose he is in.

Why have I not sensed him coming? Who is he? What causes the knowing glint in those sea-green eyes of his? How can those unearthly orbs glow eeriely like that?

"Why did you cling to an empty hope, if the hope was indeed as empty as you believed it to be?"

His voice, although reduced to a whisper, carries to me clearly as though he were sitting beside me. Hearing it, I feel like having been transported to a beach somewhere, for the tone – calm and wistful – is like the sighing of surfs and the soft trickling of a small spring among the rocks.

I bow my head, escaping his penetrating gaze, not knowing what to say. In the end, I do not answer him but press on with my own questions. "Who are you? How did you know my thoughts? How long have you been spying on me?"

To my surprise, he responds to my slightly-belligerent inquiries readily – and just as calmly as before. "You can call me Eärendel, Sea Friend. I have not been spying on you, besides; I came across you while you were talking your thoughts out loud and decided to stay in hope of consoling you."

Well, he is just as bold as I…

I scowl. "Just be gone," I snap, upset. He is a stranger. What does hhe want with me?

But why does he feel so familiar?

"Who arre you?" I reiterated, now looking straight at him imploringly.

He smiles. It is a rueful, wistful smile, and it makes my hair stand on end.

"I am your sister's beloved," he states simply.

A rush of emotions assail me. I gasp and scrambled back, crouching defensively with my back firmly pressed against the rough bark of the pine tree.

_`Dila.`_

_`The sea.`_

"What news do you bring about my sister? Where is she? Is she with the rest of our company?" I try at formality,my voice rasping with the turmoils in my heart and mind that threaten to tear my soul into pieces.

"The news is that she is well and misses you so much."

_`Lier!`_

Why has she not contacted me, then? Why have none of them? Does she truly miss me? Does she think I am unreachable? Does she know even where I am?

"There is too much anger and hatred in your heart, child." He reaches out without seeming to move away from his seat and touches my temple, at the same spot the tip of Ana's bright-coloured paper plane has touched all those years ago. My eyes well up, but I do not know if it is from the gentle, fatherly touch or the memory of my dear sister… or both. I blink the tears away furiously, but they only trickle out of their confines and down my cheeks. I do not know how, but I am crying in earnest now; one thing I have never done since I have come out of my toddler years since Aunt Petunia despised me when I was crying.

************************************************************************

I blink and rub my eyes. Dudley's loud snores filled my ears. The warmth and softness enveloping me means that I am ensconced in my bed. But How? Last I know, I was in my favourite forest glade far from the house where I and Dudley stay.

I frown and blink again. The faint light that should filter through the heavy window curtains is nonexistent. How long have I been asleep? Who brought me here? Surely not one of the Elves? It must not have been Dudley either; the world would end before he would do so.

Something catches my eyes when I sit up. It is a rather large shell, decorated by various dots of colours.

Well… from further inspection… I think it is a conch.

Who placed it there? Whose shell is it? I have my own collection of shells, true, but I never have a shell this size or this colourful; I prefer plain, delicate ones to form into a picture or the likes of it.

Nevertheless, my curiosity wins. I pick it up and place its wide trumpet-like end around my left ear. Mum told me that we can hear the sounds of the sea in this way, and I have proven it many times. Hearing those unique noises now, though, my heart tugs with pain of longing – both of the sea and my sea-loving sister at once. And speaking about my sister, I seem to hear snatches of her words too in the conch, as though she were a part of the sea itself.

And hearing it, I remember something else.

"How could that stranger speak English?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional Notes:

Two more chapters of Harry before we go back to the predicament Dila and the rest of the company faced in Mithlond. We might get one part from a point of view of Dudley… Who knows? Even I don't know where my muse will take me next. For those of you who have been waiting for an update in Nits and Bits, Brother Mine and my current prompt (five pastimes of Námo Mandos, which can be found in the Silmarillion section in this site), this is one of your turns to get an update to read, promise! (cross fingers)

By the way, the stranger who called himself Eärendel there was not the star bearing the silmaril. This chapter has undergon a rather severe editing too, since it turned out to be containing many mistakes and could make people die of boredom.


	13. Chapter 10: Of Endurance and Progress

Notes:

Still Harry's point of view, but this time I include some others too. I forgot to tell you that these two chapters are set some time after the previous one, by the way. It should explain some questions in the two pieces, I suppose. And this will be the last chapter of Harry's point of view (I cancelled the idea of having three chapters of it since I wanted to go along faster with the plot), and next we will be back with Dila and the rest of the company.

Please participate in my forum and speak up your thoughts there about this story, my other ones, and everything else you wish to talk about; I will answer to all, and will consider them if you suggest new ideas… or requests for some particular turns/characters in the plot. I am open to suggestions and criticisms, although I hope everything will be clean of flames.

There are some references to the Silmarillion and the Inheritance Cycle here. (Warning: these explanations might contain some spoilers.)

- Ossë and Uinen are two Maiar (angel-like beings) who are under the service of Ulmo, the Vala (Power) of the sea. (The Valar are sort of angels with higher stature and power than the Maiar.) All of them could disguise themselves as anything, but in their true forms, they are invisible.

- In Alagaësia, the elves (yes, without capital E) came from a different land, namely Alalëa, almost like Tolkien's Elves coming from Valinor to Middle Earth. In Alagaësia, they firstly warred with the dragons but then, in the aftermath, bonded with them, creating the order of the Dragon Riders which kept peace and order in the continent until a mad Rider named Galbatorix obliterated them and claimed the continent for himself. A Rider is chosen by the dragon inside an egg, and he or she has to touch the newly-hatched dragon in order to forge the bond – marked with a silvery oval symbol on the Rider's touching palm. A Rider can only have one dragon; when either the Rider or the dragon dies, his or her partner will usually die soon afterwards, go mad, or live only as a shell of his or her former self, since half of himself or herself has been torn away forever.

About the company's going to Alagaësia: In every year during Harry's education in Hogwarts, he and his friends – the rest of the company – went to Alagaësia, guided by Dusan and Alana, the elven twins from there whom they found in his first year, through the Mirror of Erised. The timeline between the two worlds worked just as between Narnia and our world; but this time the company went back to Alagaësia to find that they had barely left at all, always.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What time is it?"

"Look at it yourself."

"Hey, boy."

"Aren't you a boy also?"

A growl.

Silence.

One of the two beds opposite each other in the room showed signs of life. The blankets shifted. A large blond head poked out of the sheets but still rested amidst the numerous pillows. A pair of small watery eyes roamed the room and finally landed on the other bed, where a mop of unruly black hair could be seen above the drawn-high covers. Then they alit on the nightstand by said bed, on which lay a big, artistic-looking seashell.

The boy, upon registering what the thing might pertain to, snickered. "She won't come anyway," he said, taunting. There was no answer coming forth from the other occupant of the room. Finally, tired of waiting, he clambered out of the bed and lumbered across the room. Albeit, he was halted by an unseen wall just by the opposite bed. He growled, frustration and fear mingling in his expression. "Stop using that m-thing, boy."

"Stop calling it 'the m-thing', boy."

"You've become too cocky, scum."

"Who is the scum here?"

"Face me like a real gentleman."

The other boy, still ensconced in his bed under the covers, snorted. "Said by the sniffling brat who needed his friends to take down a scrawny kid."

The blond boy lunged towards the bed, but he met the same resistance. It happened also when he reached out to the nightstand, intending to seize the seashell and fling it to the floor. Fully frustrated now, he made his way back to his own half of the room and grabbed at anything to vent his frustration on.

"I wouldn't do it if I were you," came a lazy comment from across the room. The blond boy spun around and snarled, making his pig-like complexion look alien and menacing.

"Those are the Elves' property. I won't save you from their fury if you break their things."

The blond did not answer, but he forsook his futile effort anyway. He stamped to the door and went out in search of the lavatry.

Only then did the second boy emerge out of his covers. He stretched like a cat and yawned. Sitting up, he rub his eyes before looking around. Dawn had broken some hours ago, seen from how strong the light which filtered through the curtains was. But, anyway, there would still be meal to be had in the dining hall if one would seek it even at such a late hour.

With that thought, he forsook his bed and went on his morning ablutions using water from the wooden basin on the floor and a towel of his own. It was just a routine born from habit here. It was because he did not feel compelled to appear clean, since the people who usually criticised his appearance and cleanliness were not there to lecture him on such matters.

He clenched the damp towel in his hands. He had resolved not to think about it anymore, but now he did. Thinking about them would not bring them to him…

Well, and neither being angry with them, actually.

"Why have things gone wrong?" he growled, complaining for the umphteenth time to the thin air. He spread the towel on the back of one of the chairs in the room to dry. Then, deciding to satisfy his protesting stomach, he stalked to the dining hall. There he met no one, fortunately, and there were still a few platters of dishes to be had.

He was so intent on his dark, grumpy thoughts and his meal that he was not aware of Dudley lumbering into the hall; not until the latter boy punched his temple. The fork in Harry's hand clattered to the plate as his body was shoved from the chair from the force of the momentum.

"Hah! That's for your cheek, brat."

Harry, now furious, hauled himself from the floor and glared up at Dudley. He balled his fists and raised them, ready to fight, and Dudley did just the same. In such a state, Harry did not care at all that they were in the dining hall or that some Elves might be around to witness them brawling. His focus was only in the bear of a boy before him, whose piggy eyes were narrowed maliciously, and he would not let anything get on his way of retaliation.

It was Dudley who delivered the first blow. The answering hit was soon to come, and in short they were fighting in earnest. Later on Harry wondered why they had never hit any fourniture or upset the arrangement of the dishes on the tables during the heated brawl. But then again, the two cloaked Elf-like beings who put a stop to the fight might have been responsible for that. They held the two bruised and bleeding boys apart from each other easily, and somehow managed to prevent Harry from using his magic to free himself too.

"Why were you fighting?" the woman who was holding Dudley asked him. Her voice sounded like both the crooning of a dolphin and the sighing of a calm sea.

"Not your business," Dudley snarled. His face was red, but not from the exertion he had just endured. Apparently, being held down by a female, and a much-slender one than he, wounded his pride. The woman only stood to his shoulders and was half his size, yet so far she succeeded in keeping him in place despite his struggling.

"How can you speak English?" Harry demanded. His stomach chilled upon hearing her voice and words. They reminded him too much of the stranger he had met in the glade yesterday for his liking.

"We learnt, and we are fast learners," the man who held him stated blandly. His voice sounded wilder than the woman; the vibration of it was like cherning and thundering waves in a tempest.

"Learnt from whom?" Harry's stomach was now also tight with anticipation; it was not a pleasant sensation, especially coupled with the cold settling in there.

"From someone," the man replied, a smile in his mild, knowing tone. Harry's innets did a sudden flip. Dila. It must be Dila. But where? How? Why?

"I perceive many questions in your eyes, Feridon," the woman commented. Meanwhile, she steered Dudley – just as easily as ever – out of the hall to the wide, open corridor beyond.

"And you won't answer," Harry guessed bitterly. He could not resist when the man also herded him out. Apparently, they were going to the gardens, seen from the direction the woman took them to. Dudley was protesting that he had not eaten anything for breakfast, but Harry had chosen to just surrender his fate on the two strangers. After all, he had not been able to resist his captor before.

His first question, when the two people – unexpectedly – allowed him to ask, was, "What does Feridon mean?"

"Hunter," the man said simply. "It is a Sindarin word, a language used here by most of the Elves."

They were ensconced in a nook deep in the gardens. There were no one around so far, and no animals also save for the birds streaking across the pale-blue sky and a few invisible squirrels. Harry was sprawled on the soft, sweet-smelling grass, while Dudley was having a temper tantrum nearby, stamping around like an enraged ox or elephant. Their two captors were each casually perched on low branches of the tree opposite them, scrutinising them with interest.

Harry scooted away when Dudley got close to him, and at length he resorted in taking a perch in the tree like the pair opposite him. Only then did he break the sounds of Dudley's ranting and stamping that had been feeling the place for some time. "Who are you?" he asked the two cloaked beings. "What are your names?"

"Eärendel," both beings said in unison. Harry scowled. The stranger from yesterday had also said that when asked who he was.

"Your real names," he demanded, putting as much force as possible into his tone of voice in spite of his slight fear towards them.

The pair only smiled and shook their heads. But, a while later, when Harry's temper was building up to an explotion, the woman finally gave out a reason. "We are known also to the Elves. They praise us. They revere us. If you told them that you have met us, they would view it as a scorn or slander against us and them." She raised a hand when Harry was about to interject. "We shall tell you our names, and perhaps more, and you may tell anyone you would like to tell, but it is on your peril. We advise you not to say anything to anyone, however, so that you will not be in more trouble than already."

"I never seek trouble, but trouble always find me," Harry muttered. The woman smiled sympathetically.

Then a thought, as soft as a tendril of fountain sprays, spoke in the boy's mind. "_She is called Uinen by the Elves here. I am called Ossë_." It was the man. Harry was taken aback. No one had ever managed to penetrate his mental barriers after he had perfected his skills in mind arts. He shrunk away farther into the tree, as though in that way he could evade the strange beings and their mind invation altogether. They were too powerful for his taste. Even Galbatorix, the tyrant king of Alagaësia who had been infamous with his mind arts, especially mind-breaking, had never been this powerful or skillful.

He was too engrossed in his pondering that he, once again, did not see Dudley coming up to him. He yelped with surprise and horror when a hand wrapped around his left ankle and tugged it. He was too surprise to balance himself out. As a result, he tumbled out of the tree.

Dudley laughed gleefully.

The man, Ossë, caught Harry just in time. It was just when Dudley stopped laughing abruptly. Curious, Harry twisted around in Ossë's arms – because for some reason the man did not want to release him. He gaped when his eyes found Dudley and stopped struggling; in fact, he shrunk further into Ossë's embrace, not caring at that time that the man was most likely from the same race as Uinen.

Said woman herself was towering over Dudley. She was no longer shorter and slighter than he; Her presence filled the place, pressing the lungs of the two boys inward and hovering above their heads like a dark cloud. She looked even unearthly, revealed in a terrible splendour. No longer could the two boys view her as ordinary incarnate beings – neither Men nor Elves. She looked mighty and powerful, and everything in her seemed to glow from within, just like a shuttered lamp but brighter.

And she was scowling down at Dudley.

No wonder the boy cowered and whimpered now. Harry himself, who was not the object of her glare, felt his blood run cold.

When Uinen finally released him, Dudley crumpled to the ground, unconscious. Harry was frozen in mortal fear, meanwhile. The atmosphere in the place had been changed sharply, and Harry did not like it a bit.

"Who are you?" he demanded when he found his tongue again. Uinen raised an eyebrow. He quailed but somehow persisted. For one, the woman did not seem as furious as before.

"We are from the race whom the Elves call Ainur," she replied shortly, then beckoned him to her. "We do not often venture this far inland," she continued when he stood before her. "We came because your siblings were worried about you. There is something greater at work here, Feridon. Your elder sisters and younger brother do not simply wish to forsake you."

"If you need to vent your emotions, we are available here. But, if you do not need our service, we will be gone in a few minutes," Ossë, coming up behind the boy, chimed into the conversation.

"I do not need anything," Harry said quickly. "And please call me by my rightful name."

Uinen smiled. It was a warm smile, but Harry was unnerved, mainly because of the show of her power – and her true nature, in his opinion – just then. "Do not be hasty lest you would regret it, Feridon," she said. Her smile grew. "We decided to call you by a Sindarin name since now you are here, amidst a Sindarin community. We also hoped to provide you with an available name which would best describe you in case an Elf here wished to befriend you and know your name. You were not the first to receive a name from us or any of our comrades. We call your sister Dila Halfim, Slender Seashell, and one of our comrades likes to call her Wild One."

Harry had no reply for that. He wanted to scowl, but he was afraid to offend her now that he had seen for himself the extent of her power – although he had a sneaking suspicion that she had restrained much of it when facing Dudley. He was not a coward, but he had learnt not to defy certain people in certain situations with bitter toll on himself and sometimes his closest souls.

He flinched when she touched his upper arm. Surprisingly, now she looked sad.

"I lost control of myself," she said upon his questioning gaze. Harry shrugged, still hesitant and cautious.

"Your sister told me you were provicient in sword-play. We would like to test it for ourselves," Ossë offered when the silence stretched too uncomfortably for the second time. Harry forced himself not to shirk from the offer. He was rather sceptical of his abilities now, and he felt that he would have no chance of even equalling the two beings in sparring.

"You could vent your emotions in that way, you know," the man coaxed him. Harry shot him a brief odd look.

"Halfim did just that. She sparred with us and competed with us in archery practices."

"Why do you always compare me with her?" Harry asked sourly, a little bitterly.

"Because we only know of her mostly. We would like to know you too, if you permit us," the man said in an off-hand manner. He steered Harry away from Uinen and the unconscious Dudley, and it was just when Harry was aware of the twin blades concealed beneath the man's cloak.

`_What more are they hiding from me?_`

He wished he could brood longer. Unfortunately, Ossë caught his mood. Harry was just in time to receive one of the twin blades thrown to him. They were alone in a glade in the northern woods of the vally. On second inspection, Harry realised that it was his favourite glade. He had no recollection of how they arrived there in such a short time.

While the two males were engaged in a rather enthusiastic sparring, Uinen was sitting calmly by the large, unmoving form of Dudley in the nook of the gardens in which all of them had been settled before. Yet she was not content only sitting doing nothing, and soon she got an idea.

She put a hand lightly on the blond head of the large boy. A tray ladened with hot meal appeared before him when he regained consciousness, but there was no sign of Uinen anywhere. The pale shade on his face decreased alongside the food he stuffed greedily into his mouth as soon as his eyes found the tray. At length, he even seemed to entirely forget about Uinen and his less-than-pleasant experience with her just then.

When she reappeared, he was prowling around the empty tray as though a bear guarding his den. He only noticed her when she cleared her throat. Even then, he acted as if nothing had happened between them.

"You seem to have recovered quite well, Dudley," she commented in a mild tone. Dudley scowled at her distrustfully.

"How do you know my name?" he growled. "And don't come near me, mad woman. This isn't your place."

Uinen nodded. "My place is not here, true. My place is in the sea with the underwater creatures and the waves. However, my business here has not been concluded." She took a seat under a willow tree on one corner of the clearing and beckoned Dudley to her.

The boy did not obey, but he did not leave the place either. He watched the woman's every movement with his small watery blue eyes, sizing for danger. "How do you know my name?" he persisted.

Uinen resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. She folded her arms and took a long breath. After a brief glance at the direction to which Ossë had Brought Harry away, she said, "I heard everything from Ardila's point of view."

"That pathetic, sniffling, idiot girl," Dudley sniffed.

Uinen's mild countenance became unreadable. "Do not ever say that to Ossë," she warned in a slow tone void of emotions. "I do not guarantee that I would save you from him if you did. In case you were wondering what bad thing might happen to you if you insulted her before him, then just recall what you felt when you angered me; imagine at least three folds – or perhaps ten – of it."

Dudley was disbelieving, yet he recoiled nonetheless. There was only a small trace of defiance left in him, just enough for a rebuttal. "She just pretended to be brave. She ran wailing to her parents when I and my friends nearly got her. Then she brought the freak away with her forever."

"The freak?" Uinen queried.

Dudley growled. "You know whom I refer to," he snapped, but at the same time he took two steps backwards. "Him and her and the blind acted as if they had everything, as if they were the best."

"Really?"

Dudley was speechless.

"How did you arrive here?"

The vacant expression on the boy's large face was filled again with anger. "That freak pulled me here – wherever here is."

"How do you know."

"Only he can do that," Dudley snapped. "Even the most stupid person would know."

"Really?"

Dudley balled his hands into two meaty fists and clenched his jaw; he did no more than gritting his teeth at her, though.

Restraining himself seemed to take much energy and concentration. His face reddened, and sweat ran down its sides. His posture was stiff like a board, odd for such a fat body.

"Did he arrive before you?"

"No."

"Then how could he have pulled you?"

"He just could."

Uinen did roll her eyes this time. This Secondborn was particularly unique – yes, and exasperating. Speaking with him was both a curse and a blessing. She would gladly switch roles with her spouse any time soon, nevertheless, just for her to calm down a bit.

But apparently Ossë was too immersed in his sparring with Harry, so she had no other choice except to go on her role.

"Tell me how you came here," she demanded. There was no use observing courtesy, she thought irritatedly, when the one she was talking to was impolite himself and too thick-headed to catch her subtle criticisms on his manners.

He dropped sitting to the ground. The action would have looked dramatic if not for his quivering fat folds protruding visibly from his belly – which to Uinen was rather disgusting –, and the light tremor that shook the ground when he did so. "All because of him," he muttered. For the first time in their meeting, the boy looked devastated and nearly in tears.

Uinen almost pitied him when he began to wail loudly about the unfairness of his life and meanwhile thumped the ground with his fists. He talked about how his parents had been imprisoned because of Harry's fault – but he did not specify what the other boy's fault had been –, how he, Dudley, had been sent first to an orphanage then to a pair of strict foster parents… He had been passed on from a home to another because he could not stand their bland, standard living and wanted his former life back. He had to steal food, he said – or rather, screamed – oftentimes because the current family he was living with did not provide him enough nutrition in a day. He could not play his Play Station – whatever it was, Uinen thought – and his new schoolmates hated him.

At last, some time ago, he was sent to a weird, untidy home belonging to a magical family, and that was the point from which he was transported to this place. There had been a great chaos in the house, Uinen discerned from his reedy-voiced ranting, and an explotion, then Dudley just appeared beside a stand of trees by the river, to be found by several pointed-eared ethereal beings a while later.

The graceful visage of the woman was twisted in revulsion. She had an urge to retch when he described in a bland manner – bland enough for his state or the meaning behind his words – that a particularly-beautiful female slapped his hand when he was about to touch her, enamoured by her physical beauty. Afterwards he sulked aloud that the males in the company all pointed their weapons to him, their expressions menacing. They could not appreciate such a pretty female, he said.

Unconsciously, Uinen had been inching away from the ranting and sobbing self-pitying boy. It was just a reflex, since she was not powerless against him, yet still, she put a distance between them due to her disgust of him; just like a prim lady when an oozing snail was near. She did not put down the sound barrier she had put automatically when he had begun wailing, however, despite the distance. His voice – or rather, noise – had slowly subsided as of now, but she did not want to take chances in case he blew up again.

Next time there was a task to deal with Dudley, she vowed to herself, she would make her spouse do it, regardless in what peril Dudley would be put upon if the boy dared to insult Dila before him. She just could not stand the boy anymore; she, who was often the most patient of the couple and the most gentle… She was rather indignant that her calmness and impassivity had been defeated at last, and by a sniffling brat no less. Her friends and peers would laugh at her if they knew of this.

It did not lighten her mood that Ossë was chirping when he came back with the sweaty, exhausted but enthusiastic Harry. Her spouse, still in the guise of a young man, bounced on his every step. It seemed that he had healed all of the wounds Harry had gotten during his brawl with Dudley, seeing how freely Harry walked in such a depleted state. She had forgotten to do the same to Dudley, but now she had no desire whatsoever to do it. The boy did not deserve healing, she reasoned to herself.

But how if somehow he thought that Harry was responsible for all predicaments he had been in? Did he not wish to retaliate? The couple would not always be present, as they had stated to both boys at first, and their fate would be more dismal if Elves caught them. The two youngsters yet needed a home until the rest of their company – Harry's company, to be precise – came to fetch them, and it would not do to have them kicked out by their hosts and hostesses before that time arrived.

`_What are you brooding about?_` Ossë asked when his eyes landed on his spouse, who was perched on a carved boulder by a flower bush.

`_Heal him_,` Uinen said shortly as a reply and jerked her head to the direction of the tensing Dudley. Ossë frowned but complied. Meanwhile, Uinen wondered to herself if he would do so knowing that Dudley had demeaned Dila; for a time, she even entertained a thought of informing him about that.

In the end, she said nothing about any topics, and they departed after both of their temporary charges had been escorted back to their bedroom. Surreptitiously, they put a deep sleep over the boys after both Harry and Dudley had cleaned themselves up. In this way, there was a chance that, upon awakening, one or even the two of them would think that they had only had a queer dream.

Dudley indeed thought along that line that afternoon, when he woke up, although he wondered why he had changed into a new set of clothing overnight. Harry did not wake up until nearly evening, and in his haste to prepare himself for dinner, He did not think about what he had experienced either.

Things were different, however, at least for Harry, late at that night after he had come back to their bedroom from listening to some Elves singing and playing music. Dudley had already been asleep, snoring loudly under his covers. Harry, not wanting to go back to the hall where he had listened to the Elves, puttered around aimlessly in search of something to do to occupy his time before sleep took him again.

Hedwig, his pet owl, coming back from her hunt, flew inside from the open window. She landed on his shoulder and hooted softly. There was a note of restlessness in her which both fascinated and concerned him.

"What's wrong, girl?" he whispered, only loud enough to be heard over Dudley's mumbled complaint. Hedwig took off again, circling the room, but then she glided before him and stared intently at him, as though bidding him to follow her.

Harry obliged. As she was going out of the more-or-less warm interior of the bedroom, he took the initiative to put on his cloak before following her out to the corridor and beyond, hoping to fend off the night's chill. He brought two daggers with him, just in case he had to defend both of them, and a flashlight. He was not in the mood to do any magic, not ever since he had arrived in this place.

He began to feel alarmed as time passed by. The snowy owl brought him away deeper and deeper into the woods littering and surrounding the valley. What could she want that needed his attention? An injured owl? A stranded child? An abandoned baby? But he had never seen Elven children in the valley, and the settlements of his own kind were far – or so he thought.

His grip on one of the daggers belted to his waist tightened. In his right hand he held the flashlight, but he was reluctant to switch it on lest it would attract unwanted attention. Thus, with the dimmest of moonlight illuminating the ground around him, he felt his way along, hoping not to fall into a hole in the process.

Then, faintly, he heard a continuous cry.

When he neared the source, the sound became clearer. It was the sobbing and wailing of an infant.

Heart thudding rapidly in his chest, he scrambled forward as quickly as he could. Hedwig hooted urgently, as though bidding him to go faster.

He knew why a moment later. Wolves howled from afar. His bones chilled. He must get to the infant before the predators did.

Thinking that there was no use hiding if he could not reach his goal, he switched on the flashlight. He could run faster in that way, and he did just that. He arrived panting in the clearing where the infant lay, yet he did not stop even a bit. Convinced that there was nothing and nobody around, accompanying the baby, he scooped the wriggling bundle into his arms. After securing his precious burden in one arm, she shinnied up the nearest tree.

He was just in time. Soon a shadow streaked from the undergrowth to the north of the clearing, and he could hear loud sniffing noise, hungry and urgent.

The first was joined by the second and third, and the small group congregated on the middle of the clearing where the infant had lain. They prowled around and sniffed the ground, as though expecting their prize to appear out of thin air right on the spot where it had disappeared.

Hedwig settled on Harry's shoulder, tense. Her master was no better. The baby was quiescent in his arms, having just been put to sleep by him with magic. He was afraid that the infant's wailing would attract the empty-bellied predators' attention, that was why.

One minute passed, then two… The wolves would not go even after fifteen minutes had gone by. It did not seem natural, thought Harry; but anyway he had never learnt deeply into Ecosystem Biology before this. He was thankful that the baby was asleep. If not, it would be uneasy with his restlessness and continue its crying, therefore breaking their cover. He did not want to fight some four or five wolves just because of that.

How many wolves were there, though?

He peered into the gloom under the sickle moon, squinting in his effort to pierce the shadows. There appeared to be at least three wolves down in the clearing, yet he could not be sure because they constantly moved and were always in a tight circle. He considered using his flashlight to illuminate the vicinity, but then he thought the better of it. He could still count their eyes, anyway.

Before he could do so, albeit, eyes – bright yellow slitted orbs against the darkness – popped up around the clearing. His hair stood on end. They had come so silently that he had not been prepared. He clutched the warm bundle tighter against his chest when one of them finally let out a sound – a long, terrible, keening wail.

Those wolves were hunting.

At least, Harry knew that in certain. He had learnt about it during his ventures into the wilderness around the world with his family. He had learnt to avoid some places when he heard that kind of sound. Now…

`_Please… Please… Please, God, make them go… Please… I have to let those Elves know in some way… There has never been a wolf sighted here… at least that I know._`

It was dawn when the wolves departed at last.

Harry swung down from the tree and sprinted down the trail. Hedwig guided him. The dull grey light of the breaking dawn was not quite sufficient for him, but his adrenaline-clouded mind somehow managed to spot safe footing for him along the way. His neck prickled. He hoped it was only a feeling of paranoia residue of the unlucky encounter with the wolves, no more than that.

Nearing the main Elven settlement in the valley, he almost bumped to someone. The latter seemed to be going opposite him, to where the wolves had gathered until just some time ago.

"Har-ree?"

It was Elrond, the lord of the valley – or so Harry had discerned.

Harry nodded. "Elrond," he greeted the Elf back. Then he indicated with both his free hand and head that he should be going on, coming back to his room in the main house. The lord seemed concerned instead of offended; `_Perhaps I look frantic to him_,` thought Harry in embarrassment.

His heart sank to his stomach when the Elf pointed at him, then the nook of his left arm which supported his precious bundle. He did not know himself the identity of the infant, and had planned to see it for himself once he had reached his bedroom. Somehow, he did not wish to share it with anyone else.

Now he was forced to comply, though, since he did not want to offend the lord. Ignoring his innets, which felt as though rolling around in his belly, he flicked open the top of the blanket.

He nearly dropped the bundle altogether, if not for the lord's quick reflex. Elrond only released his support on said bundle when Harry nodded, although the lord was not entirely convinced, given the shaky dip of his head the boy had executed.

Harry's mind was reeling at that time. He knew who the face belonged to, but he had never thought to meet the infant in person. The little one's parents had perished not half a year ago in the last battle against the Dark Lord Voldemort, and he had been too pained by the double loss of his friends at that time to meet their only offspring. Guilt assailed him, and also desperate longing.

"Teddy," he breathed to the peaceful cherubic visage peaking out of the blanket. "Teddy Lupin." He gulped. "This is Uncle Harry, little one."

The baby did not open his eyes, and neither did he shift. The dreamless sleep was still working.

Harry looked up, intending to excuse himself to Elrond. But Elrond was no more there. Relieved, he resumed his sprint to the main house, Hedwig after him, and quickly slipped into his bedroom. The predicament of his existence here was made more complex with Teddy's mysterious appearance, yet he was also grateful that now he had a friendly – and perhaps more cooperative – person to spend his time with instead of Dudley.

When he arrived in the bedroom, Dudley was still sleeping, snoring as loudly as always. He waved his hand, creating a large wicker basket and some blankets, then put it by his bed. He laid Teddy in it, smiling all the while, before straightening up and tossing himself onto his own bed. The different emotions were still battling for dominance inside his head. It was painful and frustrating. He feared that he would not be able to do anything if he had not tamed these feelings in any means.

He bunched one edge of the quilt in his hands and clenched it. The effort was easier said than done, he thought angrily. He seemed not to have control of himself.

Pursing his lips, he sat up on the bed and cast his gaze around the room, studiously avoiding the large lump in the other bed which signified Dudley. He needed to break away from this constant view without leaving the room, but how?

Then his eyes landed on the nightstand beside his bed. They were fixed instantly on a crude necklace made of a thin length of thong curling around the seashell he had found some two days ago. Slowly, he reached out towards the necklace and unclasped its no-less crude pendant. He put it on the middle of the bed, then touched the lock of the miniature trunk with a finger, letting his magic flow through the finger to the lock.

The trunk was no longer small in a matter of seconds. It grew to the size of an ordinary trunk, and with a wave of a hand, Harry opened its lid.

Instead of items, the trunk held a sizable room inside it. Somewhat grimly, Harry descended the ladder to the room below. He closed the lid of the trunk, which was the roof of the room, afterwards.

He was standing in a lab full of potion ingredients and equipment. He had not come for the lab, however. With quick pace, he skirted it and came to face a door on the opposite wall, nearly blending with its surrounding wood. There was neither hinges nor door nob to open the door with.

"Elëanna," he breathed, and the door vanished. He stepped into the room it revealed, and the door reappeared behind him, sealing him inside. At once, orbs of yellowish-white light, just like the colour of sunlight, appeared above him, hanging suspended by each an invisible support from the ceiling.

The room, compared to the lab outside, was small. It was not occupied by any fourniture, save for a series of long tables set against the walls and creating a square on the middle of it. But what special about it was the glittering gem-like oval-shaped objects set each in a cushion on the tables. They were dragon eggs, stolen by Harry himself in the end of his last sojourn in Alagaësia with his company, who had gone with him to this new, foreign land. He had snuck into the room holding the last of the dragon eggs which were about to be shipped to Alalëa, the homeland of the Alagaësian elves, and stolen nearly half of the number there, figuratively under the nose of the company of fairly-vigilent elven guards. He had not known what to do about them, and he still did not. Yet nonetheless, he took comfort in the presence of the dormant infant dragons, all already put in a spell of bondage to a Rider, and hoped to seek solace among them.

He walked on the lane between the two sets of tables, his eyes trained on each and every egg. The display of various colours imaginable and the light glittering on the eggs' smooth surface was breath-taking, and Harry only marvelled at it for a while.

But then, unevitably, he came to the opposite face of the entrance and to a break in the inner square. From there he could reach into the innermost part, where stood a single table holding three eggs: one black, one white and one light blue.

He walked there as though entranced. His right hand alit on the light blue egg, and a sorrowful smile creased his lips. If not for the reminder it gave him, the egg would not be there, with the two neutral-coloured ones. No one else knew of the room and its contents so far, and he hoped to keep it that way for as long as possible; one reason of the decision was the egg under his palm.

Among all his company, only his sister Dila who had been granted a dragon in their first sojourn to Alagaësia. The dragon had been a light blue female whom she named Elëanna. Both were unseparable, just as the nature of their life-long bond, yet it turned out that their bond was not to stay forever. In the last battle against Galbatorix, Elëanna died shielding her Rider, who at that time had been fighting on the ground. She was assaulted from all angles by the enemy dragons and Riders, and in the end her light blue scales were all bathed red with her own blood.

Dila had had no time to kill herself or wallow in misery, for her friends and family swiftly rained her with attention, loves and things to do. The memory of her soul partner was forever etched vividly in her mind, however, and her loss as well. Some decades later, Harry had found a light blue egg the same shade of her sister's beloved, and he had kept it since then in honour and remembrance of his sister's loss and the joy she had had with the light, playful, and sometimes ponderous dragon so alike herself in personality.

Would the eggs ever hatch, he always wondered, and it was no different now. Only that, this time, somehow, he had the answer:

Yes, they would.


	14. Chapter 11: The Storm and Its Aftermath

Notes:

I am very, very, very sorry for the terribly long delay in updating. The undergraduate essay demanded my full attention, and Teitho too. It did not help that I had no clue how to proceed in this chapter, although the ideas for it had been all set.

The previous chapters have been all edited or revised. (I forgot to tell you.) The biggest change was done in chapter 9 (two chapters before this), but it was more some additions than a change, actually.

I am warning you now that the chapter might seem rather melodramatic. But it is never my intention. You could delf deeper into the 'why' of the actions and feelings in the first part of the chapter by imagining how a depressed, mentally-trapped, betrayed (in a way) new (and not quite by consent too) leader who also possessed the heart of a normal youngster responded to the situations slapped to her face. I revised my decision that the twins (Dila and Ana) would be the main characters of this story. Writing in various point of views turned out to be very refreshing and challenging. The refreshing part gets rid of writer's blocks, if not overridden by the challenge. *grin*

Following on that note: Some people might look out of character in this chapter, but remember that the company had endured a great emotional burden, even though they never showed it before. All the penned-up emotions could be unleashed in just the right moment and by the right nudge, and no one would be able to hold it back.

Oh, and this chapter contains some disturbing imagery… Be forewarned.

I have planned for a rewrite, but it will be put as a separate story. It is not for some time, though, and in the meantime I am going on with this.

I put this in the crossover section because it no longer fitted in the Lord of the Rings one. Hopefully my old readers (if they have not wandered off already) can find this story easily, and I gain new audience as well.

Please forgive my long rambling, readers. Umh. I hope I do not lose too many readers because of the gap between updates… If you do not like any parts of this chapter or the story in general, please tell me (as usual), or if you have any other comments/suggestions. As many other authors out there, I thrive on reviews, alerts, hit count and constructive criticisms.

* * *

Attention seeker. Failure of a leader. Petulant brat – Those were what Hermione and Ginny had said (or rather, shouted) to her, and they were etched vividly in her mind.

Dila ran blindly out of the coastline fortress and down to the beach, still wearing her surfing suit underneath her travelling attire. She had had no time to change into a more suitable attire upon arriving back at the beach. Dawn had broken, and she had promised herself to check on Ron's condition in the morning. However, apparently Hermione and Ginny viewed her lack of proper outfit as a sign that she had been having a great, selfish fun while Ron had still been very ill. The harsh assessment was backed up by her own judgement of herself, and now she was trying to run away from the perceived reality. She did not know where to go, and did not register anyone or anything she saw on her way; not even when the air around her was replaced by cherning brine.

It did not help either that the feelings of anger and helplessness raging in her was somehow mirrored by her environment. The sea enveloped her in its powerful grip, tossing her here and there within its wet cocoon like a weightless rag doll. It roared and rampaged, not unlike the sky overhead, yet she was oblivious of it all, as she was struggling from descending further into the pit of self-pity and self-loathing. She did not succeed.

It took a seemingly-inconsequencial outside interference, through the form of a child's frightened gurgled wailing, to bring her back to her senses. She found herself wrapped in a tight cocoon of air while the salty water around her swirled and smashed, and came to the horrid conclution that she might have had a hand in the destruction that must be – or have been – taking place.

There was only one person she knew who was capable of commanding the sea to such degree, and said person was not known for his thoughtfulness or decorum.

`_Ossë! Ossë! Cease that now!_`

Her heart chilled and squeezed at the same time. It was all her fault, added to the ones she herself and others had placed on her shoulders beforehand. But right now her mind was too numb to respond to that statement, as she registered that the disturbing noise she had heard was failing rapidly. She did not even know if Ossë obliged her wish. All that she thought now was how to reach the child as soon as she could and provide some help for him somehow. Damned be her life if an innocent soul was terminated by her thoughtless deed.

The mere resolve and effort did not bring her to the child quickly enough, though. She had to navigate a recently-sunken ship's part, and when she reached the secluded patch at the bottom which had been the ship's storage hole, her quarry was already floating lifelessly over a broken water barrel. The persistent screaming had been a mental one.

And now she took up the screaming for herself, as the world closed in on her conscience.

* * *

The storm gathered over the open sea off the shores of the Grey Havens with frightening swiftness and intensity. Ana leant over the windowsiel and stuck her head out to the salty morning air, which was now charged with static electricity. The weather menace would be big and possibly devastating, she knew it. But why now? And why suddenly too?

Underneath the brooding sky, it was not unlike a timebom ticking away either. Or had the earthbound disaster actually come to pass? The silence permiating the wing Keer-dan had lent for their use was deathly, deafening and suffocating, as though a horrible event was taking place just then. No girls bickering, no boys laughing, no children playing—

But there was shouting in the end of the long, terrible period of unconscious waiting. Hermione, then Ginny, then Susan, and Padma. They were heard down the hall through the ajar door of the room assigned to her; snapping, growling, screeching, sobbing. Her attention was focused not on the quarrel, however, but on the fleeting footsteps of thin rubber shoes on stone floor and the accompanying wild mixture of raw emotions tearing through the mental link she maintained with her twin sister.

Dila, with the volatile streak in her personality back, with a vengeance.

Great. While it was soon about to storm too. She had to somehow prevent—

Thwack! Brack!

With a surprised squeak, Ana jumped back reflexively. The window shutters had just been pulled free from their tethers on the inside wall, thumped her sides, and slammed shut when she had hastily cleared the way. A strong gust of wind had torn those wooden planks and now it threw her off balance. Sounds of similar – if not the same - event taking place filled her keen ears at once. It only served to madden her more. "Renna?" she called in a voice shaking slightly with suppressed anguish and fear. "Renna? Renna!" It was not like her guide dog not to obey her first call. Renna had been with her just now, while she had been checking the weather…

"Renna?" She stuck her head out of the open door. Foreboding gripped her heart, but she batted it away with all her might.

"Didn't see her, Ana," Tracy called from down the hall.

The world seemed to press in around her. Ana fought an urge to coil herself up there and then. Her disability was now becoming much more a liability than she had ever felt before. She somehow had to see… somehow… Renna must be just curling under some fourniture, shivering with fright. Tracy would not have seen her, then. But Ana could, if only—

No, no. Dila first. Renna could keep herself well. Dila could not. Dila was who knew where. Perhaps even too near to the raging sea and not aware of anything…

But—

Vorin?

Yes. The size of the body and limbs colliding with her indicated it. But then why the urgency?

"Did you see Renna, imp?" she asked, attempting a measure of levity – but failed. She bent down and scooped the boy into her arms before reentering her bedroom. "See her anywhere here?"

The littlest in her family never strayed far from her, yet he dutifully searched in every possible hiding places in the chamber,

And found nothing; not even the evidence that Renna had been there recently.

Flinging herself onto the bed, Ana gave in to her morbid intuition and wept.

Renna had followed Dila, to the beach and probably beyond, while now the storm was at last upon them all.

* * *

A pair of icy-blue eyes stared out from the front doors of the fortress-palace-like building, morbidly watching the fists of wind and water demolish an entire fleet of beautiful, graceful vessels – sailing ships, fishing boats, canoes, owned by the people living on the coastline from the produce of the now-raging sea. The wind – sharp, damp with seaspray, salty and tangy – slapped the cheeks below them and whipped the hair around them everywhere, creating tangles and knots.

Daphne stood there, unmoving, mutely witnessing the show of nature's ferocity together with Keer-dan and the elven twins – who huddled close around her legs. She heard her host whispering something like "Os-say," as the words were blown to her by the whistling and whirling air. It was also how the horrible, fearsome cracking, crumbling and sinking noises from the hapless vessels reached her ears. How could a storm so big came so suddenly? It had never been that way before…

And where was Ardila in all these? She had seen her run past her through the door not a while ago, but now she could be found nowhere in sight. The dark sky did not give Daphne the needed illumination too, as if it was aiding Ardila in her escape—

Or doom, if the other girl truly did not see where she was going; if she was not aware of anything.

But in the other girl's state of mine just now…

Ginny came up to her, her eyes wide and red and her body shivering; but not out of cold, since she had bundled herself up in a winter coat. She stood somewhat behind Daphne, her gaze fixed on the hazy, gloomy point afar. The other girl forced herself not to sneer at her fellow red-haired, knowing that it would only exacerbate the situation. She dearly hoped that all parties concerned would have it in themselves to negociate peace in the end, or at least truce. The crack in the previously solid – if shakeable – group had started to bear down on her frail self-esteem. And to think that she had joined the ragtag family in order to partake in their solid friendship and protection…

Daphne shook her head to get rid of all the thoughts. Then, her mind once again blank but guarded from any possible intrusion, she resumed keeping vigil at the door, even as the downpour finally broke upon the storm-plagued land and beat it heavily with sharp, icy fists.

* * *

She climbed upwards, without any knowledge or where she was going or how she would survive. The natural pull towards the sky-air was what guided her, in the state between consciousness and unconsciousness. The body of the child hooked in her left arm slowed her considerably and made the paddling work harder for her unoccupied limbs, but she did not protest. She could not, and anyway it was as well her fault that he had been trapped in a sinking ship.

Just when she broke the surface of the cherning water, her deprived lungs gave out, and the small frame in her arms was ripped away from her slack embrace by the raging currents and waves. They floated side by side, tossed here and there by the fists of the salty water.

Then a strong hand seized her hand, roughly, and on the edge of her consciousness she could sense mortal fear from the person. Her body bumped against someone else's in the person's arms, but she no longer care. Everything in her was painful, and she could feel her spirit tugging at its binds, wanting to get free. She fought to subdue it, but she also wished to just let go, to end this unspeakable torment. There was nothing in her mind, only the torture happening in each cell of her body; no one, no notion, no feeling… She was floating in a substance too light and warm to be the rampaging sea. No, just a moment more… But she wanted to go…

Then a voice called for her, frantically, plaintively, so heart-wrenching (although she had none now) that her spirit gave a pause in its struggle. Someone was warking her arms so that her chest would heave… and heave it did. She coughed up brine and blood and whatever fluid her throat and lungs had because of the intruding water. The voice never stopped, and slowly she recognised it as her twin sister's, pleading for her not to go, pleading for her to stay and lead and play and sing and sulk and grumble.

Then, alongside her growing consciousness and returning heartbeats, faintly she heard noises.

No, a cacophony, when her hearing started to gain back its usual sharpness, regardless of how deadened her brain felt.

Pleading for her to go back among them, sobbing for forgiveness, trying to joke to get any reaction from her, telling her that everyone was all right and she had to be so…

Her newly-beating heart tugged. She had forsaken the rest of her company for her own selfish desire. She had not been used to that when her closest friends, who now formed the group she belonged to, had slowly trickled into her life. It was now a strange notion, a horrible one at that.

But was it selfish for her now to wallow in her misery?

A tiny smile worked itself into her lips, tugging it slightly upwards on its edges. It was the least she could do, and she was satisfied to hear nervous chuckles or giggles from the people around her – except one that kept crying silently – when she slipped into a peaceful state of unawareness that was caught between true sleep and the waking world. Her job was done, for now.


End file.
